This Day, October 28, In Jewish History

OCTOBER 28 In Jewish History

312: Roman emperor Constantine, 32, defeated the army of Maxentius, a contender to the throne, at Milvian Bridge, after trusting in a vision he had seen of the cross, inscribed with the words, "In this sign conquer." Constantine was converted soon after and became the first Roman emperor to embrace the Christian faith. This was the turning point for Christianity in Europe. With the support of the imperial government, Christianity was able to establish itself THE religion in Europe. It marked a downhill slide for the Jews of Europe.

1636: Harvard University is established in colonial Massachusetts. Harvard certainly has had it share of Jewish students, graduates and faculty members. But the Jewish relationship with Harvard has had its darker moments. “During and after World War I, American Jewry became the target of anti-Semitism by a variety of social groups, including the Ku Klux Klan and various immigration restriction advocates. Ivy League universities were no exception, and several of these venerable schools moved to restrict Jewish enrollment during the 1920s. Some Jewish students at Harvard, the bellwether in American education, did not take admission restrictions lying down. Nativism and intolerance among segments of the white Protestant population were aimed at both Eastern European Jews and Southern European Catholics. In higher education, Jews were particularly resented. By 1919, about 80% of the students at New York's Hunter and City colleges were Jews and 40% at Columbia. Jews at Harvard tripled to 21% of the freshman class in 1922 from about 7% in 1900. Ivy League Jews won a disproportionate share of academic prizes and election to Phi Beta Kappa but were widely regarded as competitive, eager to excel academically and less interested in extra-curricular activities such as organized sports. Non-Jews accused them of being clannish, socially unskilled and either unwilling or unable to “fit in.” In 1922, Harvard's president, A. Lawrence Lowell, proposed a quota on the number of Jews gaining admission to the university. Lowell was convinced that Harvard could only survive if the majority of its students came from old American stock. Lowell argued that cutting the number of Jews at Harvard to a maximum of 15% would be good for the Jews. He contended that limits would prevent further anti-Semitism. Lowell reasoned, “The anti-Semitic feeling among the students is increasing, and it grows in proportion to the increase in the number of Jews. If their number should become 40% of the student body, the race feeling would become intense.” The fight against Jewish quotas at Harvard was led by Harry Starr, an undergraduate and the son of a Russian immigrant who established the first kosher butcher shop in Gloversville, New York. As president of the Menorah Society, Harvard's major Jewish student organization, Starr organized a series of meetings between Jewish and non-Jewish students, faculty and administrators to discuss Lowell's proposed quota. The meetings were frequently heated and painful. As Starr recalled in an account published in 1985, which can be found at the American Jewish Historical Society, “We learned that it was numbers that mattered; bad or good, too many Jews were not liked. Rich or poor, brilliant or dull, polished or crude - [the problem was] too many Jews.” Starr insisted that there could be no “Jewish problem” at Harvard or in America. Starr observed, “The Jew cannot look on himself as a problem.... Born or naturalized in this country, he is a full American.” If admitting all qualified Jews to Harvard meant a change in the traditional social composition of the student body, so be it. Starr refused to hear any hokum about 'pure' American stock as a way to limit Jewish admissions to Harvard. “Tolerance,” he wrote in the Menorah Journal, “is not to be administered like castor oil, with eyes closed and jaws clenched.” Lowell received a great deal of public criticism, particularly in the Boston press. Harvard's overseers appointed a 13-member committee, which included three Jews, to study the university's “Jewish problem.” The committee rejected a Jewish quota but agreed that “geographic diversity” in the student body was desirable. Harvard had been using a competitive exam to determine who was admitted, and urban Jewish students were scoring highly on the exam. Urban public schools such as Boston Latin Academy intensely prepared their students, many of whom were Jewish, to pass Harvard's admissions test. The special committee recommended that the competitive exam be replaced by an admissions policy that accepted top-ranking students from around the nation, regardless of exam scores. By 1931, because students from urban states were replaced by students from Wyoming and North Dakota who ranked in the top of their high school classes, Harvard's Jewish ranks were cut back to 15% of the student body. In the late 1930s, James Bryant Conant, Lowell's successor as president, eased the geographic distribution requirements, and Jewish students were once again admitted primarily on the basis of merit. Harry Starr, who lived until 1992, became a national Jewish communal leader, including a term of service as a trustee of the American Jewish Historical Society. Professionally, he became the director of the Lucius N. Littauer Foundation, which was established by a Jewish congressman from Gloversville and which over the years has given many generous gifts to Harvard. Harry Starr held no grudges against the university which in 1922 he lovingly battled on behalf of his fellow Jews.

1784: Birthdate of Sir Moses Montifore. Born in Leghorn (Italy) Montifore was raised in London where he became a successful merchant and married into the House of Rothschild. In 1824, he "retired" from business and devoted his life to public office and philanthropy. He was the first to hold numerous political and civic positions in Great Britain. He was a leader of the Jewish Community in England and throughout Europe. He was an early supporter of Jewish settlement in Eretz Israel. Montifore's Windmill is a famous landmark in Jerusalem. His 100th birthday was celebrated as a holiday in Jewish communities in the British Isles and the Continent. He passed away in 1882.

1840: Sir Moses Montifore had an audience with the Sultan. Among the topics discussed were the blood libel accusations on the island of Rhodes and in Damascus. The Sultan later issued a public firman exonerating Jews from anything to do with ritual murder accusations.

1886: The Statue of Liberty, a gift from the people of France, was dedicated in New York Harbor by President Cleveland. The Jewish poetess Emma Lazarus wrote "The New Colossus" in 1883 for an art auction "In Aid of the Bartholdi Pedestal Fund." While France had provided the statue itself, American fundraising efforts like these paid for the Statue of Liberty's pedestal. In 1903, sixteen years after her death, Lazarus' sonnet was engraved on a plaque and placed in the pedestal as a memorial.
“The New Colossus”
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

1897: Birthdate of Edith Head. The famed fashion designer was born Edith Claire Posener in Searchlight, Nevada, the daughter of Max Posener and Anna E. Levy. During her long career in Hollywood, Head’s costumes won her 35 Oscar nominations. She won 8 of the bronze stauettes. She died in October of 1981.

1898: Kaiser William II (Prussia) visited pre-state Israel and met with Herzl. At this time Eretz Israel was part of the Ottoman Empire. The Kaiser was trying to gain the Turks as an ally. He also sought to make himself the European protector of Jerusalem. Herzl was disappointed by the lack of commitment on the part of the Kaiser. Much of this was due to the opposition of German Liberal Jews, bankers, and his foreign minister Bernhard von Buelow to the Zionist movement.

1902: Opening of the Zionist Annual Conference at which The Anglo-Palestine Company is sanctioned. It will begin operations in summer 1903.

1903: The engagement of Israel Zangwill to Edith Aryton was made public. Edith Aryton’s father is one of the best known electrical engineers in England. Her mother is a noted scientist in her own right and the daughter of Levi and Alice Marks, a Jewish family from Portsea.

1912: As the election campaign of 1912 comes to an end, Oscar Straus sends a telegram denying that he had ever been connected with R. H. Macy or Abraham and Straus.

1913: Mendel Beilis was acquitted. The Beilis Trial (Russia) took place after a Christian boy was found dead near a brick factory in which Mendel Beilis worked. On June 22, 1911 he was accused of ritual murder by the government. The only evidence was the word of a drunken couple who claimed they saw a man with a black beard walking with the child. The Russian government actively took up the case after the assassination of Stolypin by a Jewish revolutionist. Professor Sikowsky, a neurologist, "proved" that Jews use Christian blood for ritual purposes. Beilis's lawyers, Margolin and Grusenberg, fought the government for two years until diplomatic pressure forced the Russians to drop the charges. Beilis then settled in the United States, where he died after a long illness in 1934.

1914: Birthdate of Dr. Jonas Edward Salk, the American medical researcher who developed the first vaccine against polio. In one of those ironic twists of fate, both the first and the second polio vaccines were developed by Jewish Doctors.

1914: Ileana Schapira, the daughter of Mihail Schapira, a prominent Jewish industrialist was born in Bucharest, Romania. As Ileana Sonnabend, she became a legendary gallery owner who had an eye for the art that nobody else wanted. She died in 2007 at the age of 92.

1918: Czechoslovakia gains its independence. There were almost four hundred thousand Jews living in the part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire that became Czechoslovakia. This meant Jews were about 2.5% of the new republics population. The Jewish population in that part of Czechoslovakia known as Bohemia traced its roots back to the tenth century. Most of the Jews of the Central European nation would perish in the Holocaust.

1922: Birthdate of Gershon Kingsley a Jewish German-American composer, most famous for composing the early electronic pop song Popcorn. He led the First Moog Quartet and was the first person to use the Moog synthesizer in live performance.

1922: March on Rome Italian fascists led by Benito Mussolini march on Rome and take over the Italian government with the assistance of the Catholic Church; pope Pius XI declares that "Mussolini is a man sent by divine providence." According to Michele Sarfatti’s new book, The Jews in Mussolini’s Italy as reviewed in The Forwards Jews were so well integrated into Italian society that by 1922 when Mussolini took power, they were in every branch of government, including the military, and were represented all across the political spectrum. There were Jews who at first adhered enthusiastically to Mussolini’s program, others were among the first to organize antifascist activities, as well as many who hoped to remain neutral. The range of activities of Italian Jews extended from academics and professionals all the way to shop keepers and panhandlers. What emerges is a heterogeneous population that professed varying degrees of religious identity and many different levels of assimilation. But anti-Semitic sentiment in Italy, as Sarfatti shows, can be traced far back. As he argues, the leftovers of the medieval Catholic anti-Judaism provided fertile grounds for anti-Jewish nationalism, which in turn fed Fascist anti-Semitism. In 1934, Benito Mussolini famously declared that “there has never been antisemitism in Italy.” A mere four years later, after abandoning his Jewish mistress of 27 years, he passed his infamous racial laws. The rise of an anti-Semitic ideology escalated with Italy’s colonial war in Abyssinia of 1935. The Fascists first developed the concept of “Difesa della razza” (“defense of the race”) in dominating the black population of the African colony. At this early stage, this doctrine had parallels only in Nazi Germany and was completely absent in the rhetoric of Fascist movements, from Spain to Hungry, Romania and Poland. Based on newly discovered documents and an abundance of statistical data, the book demonstrates that, contrary to popular belief, Mussolini’s policies toward the Jews were independently conceived and implemented, and not — as some have argued — a late concession to Hitler’s war against the Jews. Despite Il Duce’s alliance with Hitler, “only” about 7,000 Italian Jews (16.3% of the Jewish population) died in Nazi death camps. Moreover, documented instances of Italians risking their lives to save Jews abound—a fact that reinforced the perception of Italians as “brava gente” (“good people,” the kind who helped preserve Jewish lives). Sarfatti maintains that the seeds of anti-Semitism were present in the Fascist regime since its inception, though anti-Semitism was not yet official policy. With a multitude of documented examples, the book follows the anti-Semitic crescendo in both official political discourse and practice. As early as 1934, the office of the Interior Ministry pressed for the replacement of Ferrara’s mayor: “It has been brought to our attention that the local citizenry feels displeasure to have a mayor of the Israelite religion at the head of the city’s administration. Therefore, it is desirable that he be replaced with a Catholic mayor.” In 1938, the Italian dictator passed and enforced the racial laws, in many respects even more restrictive than anti-Jewish legislation in Nazi Germany, and Italy became an officially anti-Semitic country. Sarfatti stresses that Mussolini was never pressured by Hitler regarding racial policies. Italians on the whole did not protest the laws until their lethal consequences became clear. By 1943, the Fascists began confiscating Jewish property and rounding up Jews for deportation, and abruptly many of those who had not protested against anti-Jewish laws rushed to save Jews.

1937, The Palestine Post reported that some 50,000 out of the 400,000 trees in the Balfour Forest were burnt by Arab arsonists who used cotton-waste bombs, soaked in paraffin. From a historic point of view, this was no mere act of arson. By the end of the 19th centuries vast swaths of Eretz Israel were treeless waste or swamps. The JNF made reforestation a major part of its plan. In burning these trees, the terrorists were not just starting a forest fire. They were showing a determination to reject improvement and modernization.

1937: The Palestine Post reported that the two chief rabbis, Dr. Isaac Herzog and Rabbi Jacob Meir, issued a manifesto asking for a national moderation and discipline on the part of Jews in responding to the intensified Arab terror campaign. The manifesto was issued in response to reports of Jews attacking Arabs during this attempted “reign of terror.”

1938: Germany expels “some 18,000” Jews with Polish citizenship to the Polish border. Poles refuse to admit them; Germans refuse to allow them back into Germany. Seventeen thousand are stranded in the frontier town of Zbaszyn, Poland.

1940: Mussolini’s Italian army cross Albania and invades Greece. The Greek army included 12,000 Greek Jews which fought fiercely and stopped the Italian advance. Between 510 and 615 Greek Jewish soldiers from Salonica were killed.

1940: German occupiers in Belgium pass anti-Semitic legislation.

1941: 27,000 Jews assembled in Democracy Square in Kovno, Lithuania, must pass before an SS officer named Rauca, who signals life or death for each. 9200 of the Jews - 4300 of them children - are sent to their deaths at pits at the nearby Ninth Fort.

1941: Eichmann noted "in view of the approaching final solution of the European Jewry problem, one has to prevent the immigration of Jews into the unoccupied area of France."

1941: The 27,000 Jews living in Kovno were gathered in Democracy Square for "selection." Those ordered to the LEFT, lived. Those ordered to the RIGHT, (to be "relocated" elsewhere) died. By now, no one was fooled as to their fate.

1942: Jewish Warsaw Ghetto leaders ask Jan Karski, a Polish Catholic working for the underground, to tell the Polish and Allied governments: "We are helpless in the face of the German criminals....The Germans are not trying to enslave us as they have other people; we are being systematically murdered....Our entire people will be destroyed...."

1942: The SS issues a secret directive that mittens and stockings confiscated from Jewish children at death camps be gathered and sent to SS families.

1942: The Nazis deported 2,000 children and 6,000 adults from Cracow for shipment to Belzec.
1942: SS directive orders all children's mittens and stockings to be sent from the death camps to the SS families.

1942: Sixteen thousand Jews are murdered at Pinsk, Poland.

1942: Mieczyslaw Gruber, a Jewish former soldier in the Polish Army, escapes with 17 others from a Nazi POW camp on Lipowa Street in Lublin. The group will later establish a partisan group in the forest northwest of the city.

1944: The last transport train from Theresienstadt arrived at Birkenau with 2,038 Jews. Of them 1,589 would find their fates in the gas chambers. Also 164 Jews from Bolzano arrived at the same time and 137 of them would be gassed immediately.

1944: A train from Bolzano, Italy, reaches Auschwitz with 301 prisoners. Of these, 137 are immediately gassed.

1944: Birthdate of actor Dennis Franz, known best for his role as Detective Sipowicz on NYPD Blues.

1945: Birthdate of Sandy Berger, National Security Advisor to President Clinton

1948: In the evening, Operation Hiram designed to secure the Upper Gallilee begins. Named after the biblical King Hiram of Tyre, the goal was to secure the Upper Galilee as far as the north boundary of the Palestine Mandate. The IDF is facing a Palestinian military force that does not consider itself bound UN Truce Agreements as well as regular Arab troops including units of the Syrian Army. The sixty hour operation was successful in securing part of Israel’s border

1948: Israeli forces clear the Egyptians from the Mediterranean coastal plain to an area south of Yad Mordechai.

1950: The Jack Benny Show starring Jack Benny aired for the first time. The show ran for 15 years which is an exceptionally long run in the world of television. Thus the Jewish comedian Jack Benny proved to be a star in all entertainment medium – radio, film and t.v.

1952: The Jerusalem Post reported that John Blandford of UNRWA admitted that 881,600 Palestine refugees were eating out of the relief money planned for development and there was little progress in resettlement. The US, Britain, France and Turkey asked the UN for additional funds to be added to the sums already allocated. The Arab states worked diligently to create the “Arab Refugee” problem. While Israel was busy absorbing refugees from all over the world (including Arab states), the Arabs kept the brethren penned up in camps in Gaza and other border areas.

1952: The Jerusalem Post reported that a well with a capacity of 88,800 gallons of water per hour was discovered near Beersheba. This is the same Beersheba where wells were dug in Biblical times. The discovery of an additional water source in the Negev was big news.

1956: Having exhausted all other options, the Israeli Cabinet agrees that IDF forces will cross the Egyptian border and attack in the Sinai Peninsula.

1958: Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli becomes Pope and takes the name Pope John XXIII. John XXIII had worked to save Jews during the Holocaust. As Pope he worked to improve relations with the Jewish People.

1965: Birthdate of Jami Gertz who plays Muff on Square Pegs.

1965: Nostra Aetate, the "Declaration on the Relation of the Church with Non-Christian Religions" of the Second Vatican Council, was promulgated by Pope Paul VI; it absolves the Jews of the alleged killing of Jesus, reversing Innocent III’s declaration from 760 years ago. In short, Pope Paul VI announces that ecumenical council has decided that Jews are not collectively responsible for the killing of Christ.

1977: The Jerusalem Post reported that the US had bluntly told the Arab States that Israel had demonstrated significant flexibility on procedures for the reconvening of the Geneva Peace Conference that it is now up to the Arabs to respond in kind.

1995: During an opposition rally in Jerusalem’s Zion Square, a photographic montage was circulated showing Rabin in a Nazi uniform.

2000: The Battered Immigrant Women Protection Act introduced by Illinois Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky became law. This act works to assist immigrants who are victims of domestic violence by providing legal protections that can aid them in escaping violent situations and securing court protection. Immigrant women are particularly vulnerable because they often must rely on the legal residence status of their abusers. The Battered Immigrant Women Protection Act helps immigrant victims of domestic violence take control of their lives without fear of deportation. Jan Schakowsky was elected to represent the 9th Congressional District of Illinois in 1998 after eight years of service in the Illinois State Assembly. Throughout her political career, Schakowsky has worked for economic and social justice, sought an end to violence against women, and worked for a national investment in healthcare, public education and housing needs.

2001: The New York Times book section features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or on topics of special Jewish interesting including The Death of Comedy by Erich Segal and The Brother: The Untold Story of Atomic Spy David Greenglass and How He Sent His Sister, Ethel Rosenberg, to the Electric Chair by Sam Roberts.

2001: Listening to the horror unfold over his cellphone, Asher Kilgor heard the staccato fire of Palestinian gunmen cutting down his fiancée, Sima Menachem, on her way home from work today. In an interview with the Jerusalem Post following the terrorist attack, Kilgor said “he was waiting at a bus stop here for her return from her job as a secretary in a law office in the nearby city of Hadera. Ms. Menachem's 8-year-old daughter was waiting with him at the bus stop. ''She always took the 1:55 p.m. bus from Hadera,'' Mr. Kilgor said. ''At 2:30, I called her and she told me that the bus was late, then she called back to say that she would take a taxi.'' ''Two minutes later, I got another call, and all I heard was shots and screams,'' Mr. Kilgor continued. ''I think she called to tell me something was happening. I heard bursts of gunfire. I shouted into the phone until the call was disconnected. I called back, but the phone was not in service. I called the police station, and they said there had been an attack in Hadera.'' Ms. Menachem was one of four Israeli women killed when two Palestinian gunmen in a sport utility vehicle opened fire with M-16 rifles near a bus stop on Hadera's main street, riddling dozens of commuters and pedestrians with bullets. The gunmen, from the militant group Islamic Holy War, were killed by the police. More than 30 people were injured in the attack. Ms. Menachem, 30, had met Mr. Kilgor, 33, a police officer, four years ago. They moved in together, raising two daughters from her first marriage and a third of their own in this picturesque hill town overlooking the Mediterranean. They had planned to marry in a month, but instead Mr. Kilgor stood grief-stricken today at Ms. Menachem's wreath-covered grave. Surrounded by her wailing sisters and mother, Ms. Menachem was buried here today. They remembered her as a dynamic woman with an easy laugh who liked to dress well, and most of all loved to be at home with her children. ''You were a victim of the terrible price in blood exacted by life here,'' a sister said in her farewell. The other victims were also killed on their daily rounds. Lidya Marko, 63, was heading home from a dental appointment. Smadar Levy, 23, a medical secretary, was on her way to work. Ayala Levy, 39, was returning from her job as an assistant kindergarten teacher. The seats at the bus stop where they died were covered with memorial candles and flowers today. Bullet holes still scarred the bus shelter, but pockmarks left by the bullets in a nearby library building had already been filled in an effort to erase traces of the attack and get back to normal as quickly as possible. Across the street, Oz Zahavian, 24, sat in his health and beauty aids shop. He had seen it all from his seat, he said, and it was hard to go back to business as usual. ''I keep seeing the pictures in my head,'' he said. ''Teenage girls hit in the the legs and chest, a girl whose leg was shattered, and someone crying: 'I want to walk. I don't want to be a cripple.' ''The shock waves of the attack emptied downtown Hadera today. There were few people on the sidewalks, and traffic was light. ''It's impossible to get back to normal the next day, if at all,'' Mr. Zahavian said.

2003: Illinois attorney Stuart Levine is the guest of honor at a lavish reception hosted by the “Friends of Israel Defense Force.” In 2008, Levine will plead guilty to a variety of charges and became a key witness in a major political bribery trial.

2004: The World Jewish Film Festival, the first of its kind in Israel and the Jewish world opens in Tel Aviv.

2005: Newspapers reported that response to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's call Wednesday for Israel to be "wiped off the map" uniformly negative. The Secretary General of the United Nations, the European Union, the British Prime Minister, an Austrian Catholic action organization and many more have come to Israel’s defense. Even some of Israel’s harshest critics have said that the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians is no excuse for destroying Israel or for this kind of rehotric. While talk may be cheap, it certainly has a different sound than was heard twenty-five years ago when the interantioanal community was condemning Zionism as racism and applauding Yassar Arafat when he spoke at the U.N.

2005: As part of the Plame Affair Lewis Libby vice president Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, is indicted by federal prosecutors. Libby resigns later that day Valerie Palme and Lewis Libby are both Jewish.

2006: Red Auerbach, the man many believe was the greatest professional basketball coach of all times, passed away.

2007: New York’s Erez Safar celebrates the launch of his new website called Shemspeed (www.shemspeed.com) with a gala event in Los Angeles.

2007: The Sunday New York Times book section features reviews of the following books by Jewish authors and/or that featured Jewish topics including The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century by Alex Ross, Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Oliver Sacks who was dubbed "the poet laureate of medicine" by the New York Times, a biography of Ervin Nyiregyhazi entitled Lost Genius: The Curious and Tragic Story of an Extraordinary Musical Prodigy by Kevin Bazzana, Gentlemen of the Road by Michael Chabon author of The Yiddish Policemen’s Union one of the dumbest books ever written at least by a Jewish author on a Jewish topic.

2007:The Washington Post book section features reviews of the following books by Jewish authors and/or that featured Jewish topics including Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain by Dr. Oliver Sacks, The Museum of Dr. Moses by Joyce Carol Oates, In Among the Righteous: Lost Stories From the Holocaust's Long Reach Into Arab Lands, Robert Satloff’s search throughout the Middle East for evidence that Arabs helped Jews during World War II. "Satloff's efforts to tell the story of Arab behavior -- both complicity and heroism -- during the Holocaust are important."

2007: The Chicago Tribune reports on the controversy surrounding the introduction of Mishkan T’filah, the new prayer book for the Reform Movement in an article entitled “Prayer book ignites debate” featuring an interview with Rabbi Peter Knobel , the Evanston, Illinois rabbi who heads the rabbinical group that publishes the movement’s liturgy.

2007: In an article entitled “New Orleans sees resurgence of Jewish life in Hurricane Katrina Aftermath,” Anshel Pfeffer describes conditions in the Crescent City two years after if endured the worst aquatic disaster since the days of Noah:
Michael Weil, executive director of the Jewish Federation of New Orleans estimates that over the last two years since Katrina, at least 400 Jews have moved to the city to take part in its rebuilding, in a resurgence of Jewish life in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.About 30 percent of newcomers to New Orleans are Jewish. "We made a survey and we found out that these newcomers can be categorized in two profiles. There are the opportunists, carpetbaggers, lawyers, engineers, damage-assessors who realize this is the time to make money here. But there are also many idealists, people who believe in Tikkun Olam and see this as there chance to make a change. Most of them are young people in their twenties and thirties, singles and couples, very few with children." About 9500 Jews lived in New Orleans before Katrina, and their numbers were dwindling. A third of them left the city after the storm and now the Jewish population stands at 6700, including the newcomers. The rebuilding efforts have also lead to a newfound enthusiasm for Jewish community life and about 70 percent of Jews in New Orleans are currently affiliated in some way with Jewish organizations, a very high number relative to most cities in the United States. To attract more Jews to the area, the federation has put together a package of incentives, modeled in part on the sal klita (absorption benefits) given to Olim in Israel. It includes 3000 dollars in moving grants, 2500 in rental assistance and an interest-free loan of 15 thousand for those purchasing or renovating a home or starting a business. Newcomers are also given free membership to all Jewish organizations and synagogues during their first year. "We are also getting funding now so we can offer newcomers with children a free Jewish education at our day school here" says Weil. Since the program began in August, there have already been 170 enquiries. Weil, a former research fellow and policy planner at the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute in Jerusalem, has been on the job for a year and was in Israel last week leading a UJC mission from New Orleans. He wants other communities around the world, struck by disaster to be able to learn from New Orleans experience and there have already been talks with Kiryat Shmona municipality. "Our policy has been not to hang around waiting for someone else to help us out, and not to wait for billions of federal money to come in but to change the rules of the ballgame. We made the switch from a declining community and became an emerging one." Sarina Pollack, a lawyer from Chicago, is an example of the new kind of New Orleans Jew. She arrived with a UJC group to give assistance after the storm and ten months ago came to live. "I was offered a job here at a law firm dealing with damage and property cases" she says, "and jumped at the opportunity. I think at lot of people like me are interested in coming here. We've led easy lives and the most we could have done is give money donations, this is a real opportunity to give something with our own sweat and do the kind of Tikkun Olam we only learned about before." New Orleans is predominantly a Reform community with 4 temples. The city also has a Conservative synagogue and two Orthodox ones which will probably unite in the future and two Chabad centers. As part of the apparent Jewish renaissance in the city, a new Orthodox Rabbi will be appointed at the Beit Yisrael Synagogue on Sunday. For many outsiders, New Orleans has the image of a hedonistic, licentious Mardi Gras city, hardly the place for observant Jews, but Rabbi Uri Topolosky, who arrived from Riverdale three months ago is certain that he can attract young Orthodox families to his new community. Beit Yisrael was established 104 years ago but in recent decades it was a declining congregation with less than a hundred members and only about 25 arriving on any particular Shabbat. The synagogue was flooded during Hurricane Katrina, submerged under ten feet of water and its Torah scrolls and holy books were destroyed. Half its members left the city following the storm. "We are now rebuilding the community" Topolosky said, "and we already have ten new members. I believe Orthodox Jews will come here because this is the kind of place where you have a real opportunity make a change and be a part of defining the community. In a big community, things are set out and defined for you. This is a special place for Jews, even the fact that we are now using a room lent to us in the Reform temple which is a very rare thing for an Orthodox community, while we look for a new place to rebuild our synagogue shows how special Jewish life is here."

2008: In Little Rock, Arkansas, Bat Mitzvah of Rochel, daughter of Rabbi Pinchus and Estie Ciment. The Lamplighters provide yet another spark – Mazel Tov.