This Day, November 13, In Jewish History

November 13 In Jewish History

354: Birthdate of St. Augustine of Hippo. While St. Augustine may be held in high regard by the Roman Catholic Church, he held the Jews in especially low regard. In his famous work The City of God, Augustine reports that the Jews were exiled because of their rejection of Jesus. The dispersal of the Jews to so many different places is way of reminding Christians that their belief in Jesus as Messiah is correct. The exile came about because the Jews were enemies of the Church, but the Jews must not be slain so that they can finally see the error of their ways an repent. The sword of Constantine and the cross of Augustine would soon draw together to make a bitter brew for Jews for centuries to come.

1160: Marriage of Louis VII of France with Adele of Champagne. Louis ignored the calls of Peter the Venerable, the Abbot of Cluny for the annihalation of the Jewish people. Unfortunately, this marriage produced King Phillip II who exploited the Jews and then expelled them from his kingdom. Unfortunately, the son was unlike the father.

1460: Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal passed away at the age of 66. A devout Catholic who was a master of the Knights Templar, Henry was dedicated to bring glory to Portugal through maritime endeavors. To that end he was only too willing to employ Jewish mathematicians, astronomers and cartographers despite his strong Crusading temperament.

1757: The Talmud was publicly burned in Kamenets-Podolski (Poland). Jacob Frank, a follower of the false Messiah Shabbetai Zevi had begun his own movement which emphasized the Kabbalah and denigrated the Talmud. His practices (some of which were of sexual nature) were condemned by the local Rabbinate. In revenge, he arranged a dispute in Lvov between himself and the local Jewish leaders. Bishop Nicholas Dembowski who presided over the disputation ruled in favor of Frank and ordered all copies of the Talmud found to be dragged through the streets and burned. Around 1000 copies of the Talmud were destroyed. Within a few years, many of the Frankists converted to Christianity.

1791: King Louis XVI signed the resolution of emancipation guaranteeing all French Jews full rights of citizenship.

1806: Jewish merchants of Gibraltar wrote Aaron Nunez Cardozo a prominent merchant serving as a liaison between the British government and the Muslim Barbary States seeking his help in getting them an exemption from the Moroccan dress code for dhimmis. As the following entry shows, dhimmi status was part of the “peculiar relationship” that the Muslims imposed on the Jews. “The Muslim attitude toward Jews is reflected in various verses throughout the Koran, the holy book of the Islamic faith. "They [the Children of Israel] were consigned to humiliation and wretchedness. They brought the wrath of God upon themselves, and this because they used to deny God's signs and kill His Prophets unjustly and because they disobeyed and were transgressors" (Sura 2:61). According to the Koran, the Jews try to introduce corruption (5:64), have always been disobedient (5:78), and are enemies of Allah, the Prophet and the angels (2:97­98). Still, as "People of the Book," Jews (and Christians) are protected under Islamic law. The traditional concept of the "dhimma" ("writ of protection") was extended by Muslim conquerors to Christians and Jews in exchange for their subordination to the Muslims. Peoples subjected to Muslim rule usually had a choice between death and conversion, but Jews and Christians, who adhered to the Scriptures, were allowed as dhimmis (protected persons) to practice their faith. This "protection" did little, however, to insure that Jews and Christians were treated well by the Muslims. On the contrary, an integral aspect of the dhimma was that, being an infidel, he had to openly acknowledge the superiority of the true believer--the Muslim. In the early years of the Islamic conquest, the "tribute" (or jizya), paid as a yearly poll tax, symbolized the subordination of the dhimmi. Later, the inferior status of Jews and Christians was reinforced through a series of regulations that governed the behavior of the dhimmi. Dhimmis, on pain of death, were forbidden to mock or criticize the Koran, Islam or Muhammad, to proselytize among Muslims or to touch a Muslim woman (though a Muslim man could take a non-­Muslim as a wife). Dhimmis were excluded from public office and armed service, and were forbidden to bear arms. They were not allowed to ride horses or camels, to build synagogues or churches taller than mosques, to construct houses higher than those of Muslims or to drink wine in public. They were not allowed to pray or mourn in loud voices-as that might offend the Muslims. The dhimmi had to show public deference toward Muslims-always yielding them the center of the road. The dhimmi was not allowed to give evidence in court against a Muslim, and his oath was unacceptable in an Islamic court. To defend himself, the dhimmi would have to purchase Muslim witnesses at great expense. This left the dhimmi with little legal recourse when harmed by a Muslim. Dhimmis were also forced to wear distinctive clothing. In the ninth century, for example, Baghdad's Caliph al-Mutawakkil designated a yellow badge for Jews, setting a precedent that would be followed centuries later in Nazi Germany. The Moslem view of the Jew as permanent second class citizen would help to explain the hostility towards the state of Israel. Under the concept of dhimmi Moslems could not accept living in a state where Jews had equal rights and they certainly could not accept living in a state that had been created by a victory of Jewish soldiers over soldiers of Islam.

1844: Czar Nicholas I of Russia issued a decree calling for the establishment of a school for Jewish students and a seminary to train rabbis and teachers. This was not nearly as benign as it sounded and most Jews avoided the siren call of enrolling their young in schools run by the government of Czarist Russia. The Czar had a secret plan to gradually close the old Jewish schools and thus leave Jewish education in the hands of a government committed to the extinction of the Jewish people in Russia.

1856: Birthdate of Louis Brandeis. Southern born, Harvard educated; Brandeis pursued a successful legal career as a champion of the underdog. He was an ally and confidant of President Woodrow Wilson. Wilson appointed Brandeis to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1916. This was a milestone in American history and Jewish history. Brandeis was the first Jew named to the high court. He was also the first of whole group of minorities who would eventually take their place on the court including African-American and women. The Brandeis nomination was contested by anti-Semites and the American business community. Brandeis served on the bench until 1939. Brandeis was also a committed Zionist and a leader of the movement in the United States. He passed away in 1941. Words from Brandeis: “The greatest menace to freedom is an inert people.” “Every American Jew who aids in advancing the Jewish settlement in Palestine, though he feels that neither he nor his descendants will ever live there, will be a better man and a better American for doing so.”

1893: Birthdate of Romanian born Israeli painter Reuven Rubin. Among his works are an oil canvas painted in 1922 entitled “Self Portrait with a Flower” which is on display in the Rubin Museum.

1895: The New York Times reported on an instructive and most entertaining lecture on the subject of “Ghosts” given in the West End Synagogue by Rabbi F. de Sola Mendes to an audience composed almost entirely of women and young girls.

1900: Herzl meets the French millionaire Reitlinger and discusses the idea of redeeming the Turkish debt.

1903: French impressionist painter Camille Pissarro passed away.

1906: Birthdate Eva Zeisel, American industrial designer. Born in Hungary, Zeisel is another refugee from Hitler’s Europe who enriched American culture; in her case in the world of ceramics and pottery.

1911: The Vaad or Council of Rabbis of the Jewish community of Safed votes 20,000 Francs toward the [Turkish] war fund.

1916: Julius Rosenwald, Chicago merchant and philanthropist contributed $500,000 toward the endowment fund for the proposed medical department of the University of Chicago

1918: Samuel Untermeyer, Nathan Straus, Abram I. Elkus, Louis Marshal, Adolph Lewisohn Samuel C. Pamport, Louis Lipsky, Judge Otto A. Rasalsky, Dr. amuel Schlman, Israel Unterberg and Franklin Simon host a dinner in New York for a delegation of visiting Zionists led by Vladimir Jabotinksy that includes Professor Otto Warburg and Alexander Goldstein.

1945: British Foreign Minister Bevin gives a speech attacking Zionism and the Jewish people.

1936: Winston Churchill wrote to his son Randolph that the initial basis for the creation of the Anti-Nazi League was Jewish resentment at their abominable persecution, the base had grown to include all those who are prepared to support genuine military action to resist tyranny or aggression.

1938: The Nazi government orders the Jews to cease all trading and business activities by end of the year.

1939: SS troops in Poland arrest and execute 53 Jewish men who happen to reside at the same address as a Jewish man who has shot and killed a Polish policeman.

1941: Warsaw diarist Chaim Kaplan writes that his wife has been stricken with typhus.

1942: The American (Jewish) Joint Distribution Committee (AJDC) report on the situation of Jews in North Africa including the fact that the occupation by Spanish military forces at Tangiers had led to the introduction of anti-Jewish laws being put into effect.

1943: Frizt Lustig tried to escape from Birkenau. He was caught and shot ten days later.

1945: Prime Minister Clement Attlee suggests formation of a joint Anglo-American committee to investigate the problem of Jewish refugees and devise a solution to it. This apparently benign suggestion was an attempt to smooth Truman’s ruffled feathers over the British government’s refusal to accept Truman’s request that 100,000 Jews be admitted immediately to Palestine.

1946: As part of growing wave of terror caused by Britain’s failure to honor its war time promise to allow Jewish immigration to Eretz Israel and increasing repressive measure aimed at the Jews of the Yishuv, two British policemen were killed while patrolling the Jerusalem-Jaffa rail line.

1948: The newly created Israeli government announced that it will launch shortly a full-scale development plan for the Negev desert area of southern Palestine, centered on Beersheba as an Israeli town, it was learned today.

1956: The first Israeli train arrived in Gaza, after Israeli troops drove out the occupying Egyptian army and cleaned out the terrorist bases. Israeli troops would leave Gaza in 1957 under pressure from the U.N. and the Eisenhower Administration. Ten years later, the U.N. would fail to honor the guarantees made to Israel concerning protecting the Jewish state from the Arabs. The result would the Six Day War in 1976.

1960: Sammy Davis, Jr. married Swedish actress May Britt. Davis was probably one of the most famous if not the most famous convert to Judaism in the middle of the 20th century. His marriage to Britt caused a furor because it was inter-racial. Others, with a more parochial view, were upset that he had married a non-Jew.

1967: World class pianist Harriet Cohen passed awayBorn in London in 1895, she studied at the London Consevtory before going on to fame and fortune. Such was her skill, that she was honored as a CBE (Most Excellent order of the British Empire) in 1938.

1975: In Jerusalem an explosive charge went off near cafe Naveh, on Jaffa Road near the pedestrian mall. Seven people were killed and 45 injured.

1977: The comic strip ''Li'l Abner'' by Jewish cartoonist Al Capp appeared in newspapers for the last time.

1984: David Levy finds his 1st comet.

1995: The Henry and Lucy Moses Fund, freely admitting that it was reviving the charity of a bygone era, announced that it would give a total of $2 million to four leading New York City hospitals to help pay for care for uninsured patients as government cutbacks are made in Medicare and Medicaid. Most foundation executives see payments for direct aid as largely fruitless since the problems the money is being spent for will remain long after the money is spent. The Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, for example, already spends more than $25 million a year on free care out of its annual hospital budget of $600 million. Mount Sinai, Montefiore and Columbia-Presbyterian, the other three hospitals that received gifts yesterday, also absorb large amounts on unreimbursed care and see these needs growing as Medicare and Medicaid are reduced. Those executives have focused on giving to programs they think will offer solutions to broader problems. But to Henry Schneider, president of the Henry and Lucy Moses Fund, the needs of the sick poor, and the nonprofit hospitals that deal with them, are so distressing that he felt a need to make a gesture to highlight the problem and to try to spur others to make similar contributions. Dr. John Mendelsohn, chairman of the department of medicine at Sloan-Kettering, recalled the days before government assumed responsibility for larger amounts of medical care, when private philanthropy accounted for a larger share of their support. "Now it is round-robin, back to the citizens of the country who will have to take responsibility for at least some of it," he said.

2005: The New York Times book section features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or on topics of special Jewish interest including A Time to Run by Barbara Boxer

2006: Haaretz reported that an initiative to refurbish the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp has sparked a storm among Holocaust survivors in Israel. The initiative was announced last month by the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum's new director, who claimed that the current exhibits were outdated and insufficiently attractive to visitors. A detailed refurbishing plan has yet to be drawn up, but participants at a recent meeting of Holocaust survivors' organizations warned against moves to "beautify" the site, as has been done with other Nazi concentration camps. "Dachau and Sachsenhausen have already become well-kept gardens; we won't allow the same to happen to Auschwitz," they said.

2007: Wagner College and the Center for Jewish History present “Immigration to New York City: 100 Years of Transformation” in which a distinguished panel explores the changing face of New York City through the framework of three diverse ethnic and religious communities--Irish, Italian, and Jewish--and address the implications of these transformations on current and future generations.

2007: While visiting Israel, Ukranian President Viktor Yuschenko promised followers of Reb Nachman that he would protect the gravesite from sale or commercial exploitation.

2008: The Jewish Reconstructionist (JRF) Biennial Convention opens in Boston, Mass.
2008: In New York, the 23rd annual Israel Film Festival comes to an end.

2008: Opening of The 32nd annual Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show will be held at the Pennsylvania Convention Center. This premier show and sale of contemporary craft features 23 artists from Israel among the 195 artists who will be showing and selling their wares.

2008: Opening of Congregation Beth Judea’s Family Education Weekend featuring Mordechai Rosenstein as its Artist in Residence in Long Grove, Il. “The Hebrew alphabet is the essence of the art of Mordechai Rosenstein.”

2008: In Iowa City, Award winning author Amy Bloom attends a reception at the University of Iowa Hillel and then participates in a reading at Prairie Lights Book Store.