This Day, November 21, In Jewish History

November 21 In Jewish History

164 BCE: On the secular candidate, Judas Maccabaeus, son of Mattathias of the Hasmonean family, restores the Temple in Jerusalem. Events commemorated each year by the festival of Hanukkah.

1272: Following Henry III of England's death on November 16, his son Prince Edward becomes King of England. As bad as Henry had been for the Jews, Edward would prove to be even worse. After squeezing all he could out of his Jewish subjects, Edward expelled them in 1290. England would remain officially Jew-free until for the next four centuries.

1619: Shah Abbasi (Sufi Dynasty, Persia) intensified persecution against the Jews. Many Jews were forced to live "Marrano-like" lives, outwardly practicing Islam. This policy was continued by his son, Abbas II.

1694: Birthdate of the French philosopher Voltaire. Whatever else one may say about Voltaire, he was an anti-Semite. Not only that, he was an anti-Semite with a twist. Other Enlightenment philosophers that once Jews were no longer persecuted they would give up their religious trappings and meld into the mainstream of European culture. Voltaire believed that Jews were innately deformed and that they were beyond reform. However, Voltaire was humane. He did not believe that Jews should be burned at the stake.

1789: North Carolina ratifies the U.S. Constitution to become the 12th state in the Union. North Carolina has one of the oldest Jewish communities in the United States. The early history of the Jews in North Carolina is a mixed. In 1776, it was one the original thirteen colonies that could boast of having an organized Jewish community. In 1852, the Jews of Wilmington, N.C, purchased land for a burial plot. However, the congregation was not organized for another until 1867. This lengthy was not unusual in the South. In other ante-bellum communities, land was purchased for a cemetery, but with war clouds gathering, Jews waited before building synagogues and temples. Further delay was caused by the Civil War and the impoverishment that followed. In 1809, Jacob Henry was the first Jew elected to the legislature in the state. He accomplished this feat despite the state’s religious tests for office holders. Strangely enough, the Tar Heel state did not get around to removing religious tests until 1876. The Jewish Community of North Carolina has made great strides over the years. According to the Glenmary Research Center, which publishes Religious Congregations and Membership in the United States Guilford County (which includes Greensboro and High Point) ranked 99th on a list of the 100 counties in 2000 with the largest Jewish communities, based by percentage of total population. The thrity thousand Jews comprise 0.3% of the state’s populaton but pack enough clout to have gotten then Governor Jim Hunt to support a state agency designed to stimulate ecocnomic and cultural exchanges with the state of Israel.

1818: An English missionary petitioned the Czar of Russia to restore the Jewish independence in the land of Israel.

1824: [Editors note: Contrary to popular misconception, the American Jewish Community has deep, historic roots outside of New York and its immediate environs.] The first Reform Congregation, Beth Elohim, was established in Charleston, South Carolina. Beth Elohim congregation is the birthplace of Reform Judaism in America and the oldest surviving Reform congregation in the world. Its members have been eminent leaders in the city, state and nation. Among them: Moses Lindo, who helped develop cultivation of indigo, and Joseph Levy, the first Jewish military officer in America. The present beautiful Greek revival temple at 90 Hasell Street (pronounced Hazel) was built in 1840. The congregation began as a Sephardic group in 1749. George Washington wrote, "May the same temporal and eternal blessings which you implore for me rest upon your Congregation..." The Beth Elohim Coming Street cemetery is the largest pre-Revolutionary Jewish cemetery in America. The congregation's first rabbi, Moses Cohen, was the first person buried here, in 1762. Bernard Baruch's great grandfather, Rabbi Hartwig Cohen, is one of several other Beth Elohim rabbis here. Other noteworthy persons at this site are nine Charleston Jews who took part in the American Revolution, six who fought in the War of 1812, eight of the 180 Charleston Jews who fought in the Civil War, and three of the Jewish Masons who founded the Scottish Rite here in 1801. The history of Charleston Jewry is beautifully documented with ceremonial objects, records, paintings and photographs at the Beth Elohim Archives Museum. A three-story house at 89-91 Church Street in Charleston was the model for Catfish Row, the centerpiece of Porgy and Bess. George Gershwin wrote the opera while living in Folly Beach. As it moves into the 21st century, the Jewish Community shows its vibrancy through the construction of the College of Charleston, Yaschik/Arnold Jewish Studies Center. Housed in a new three million dollar, 12,000 square foot building, the center offers college credit Jewish studies courses serving the entire community. The Robert Scott Small Library houses the largest archives of South Carolina Jewish history. Last but not least, Reuben Morris Greenberg has been Chief of Police in the city since 1982. He is the first African-American Jewish police chief in the city’s history.

1861: Confederate President Jefferson Davis appointed Judah P. Benjamin Secretary of War. Before the Civil War, Benjamin had been the second Jewish member of the United States. After the war, he would refuse to surrender and would move to Great Britain where he became a barrister. Benjamin is always connected with Louisiana and New Orleans. However, there is also a strong connection with Charleston, South Carolina. Judah Philip Benjamin attended the Hebrew Orphan Society School in Charleston, as a boy. The building still stands at 88 Broad Street. High on the front is a Hebrew inscription. The house of Judah Benjamin's father can be seen nearby at 35 Broad Street.

1879: The first edition of The American Hebrew is published in New York. Phillip Cowen was the first publisher of this weekly paper which was founded by F. de Sola Mendes.

1891: Herzl's comedy "Prinzen aus Genieland" - "Princes from Genius Land", is produced at the Carltheater in Vienna. It achieves only a short run.

1895: Herzl arrives in London and holds conversations with Israel Zangwill. Zangwill gives him the names of "several suitable men" with whom to meet including Colonel Goldsmid, Rabbi Singer and Chief Rabbi Adler.

1899: Herzl submits a memorandum for the Czar to explain the Zionist plans and to ask for an audience.

1905: Albert Einstein's paper, "Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content?", is published in the journal "Annalen der Physik". This paper reveals the relationship between energy and mass. This leads to the famous equation e=mc².

1915: Funeral services for Dr. Solomon Schechter were held this morning at the Jewish Theological Seminary. Four hundred mourners, including a “who’s who” of the Jewish community, packed the building while more than a thousand people stood outside waiting to pay homage to the deceased sage and scholar.

1916: Birthdate of Sid Luckman, legendary quarterback of the Chicago Bears.

1916: Emperor Franz Josef dies at the age of 85. He is followed to the throne by his 29 year old great nephew, Archduke Charles.

1917: The Allied Forces (including Jewish soldiers) under General Allenby were fighting the Turks on the slopes of Nebi Samwil, the traditional site of the Tomb of the Prophet Samuel.

1918: After the fall of the Czar there was a strong movement in Ukraine to establish an independent political entity. The Jewish parties voted against the severance with Russia leading to direct attacks on the Jews in the form of Pogroms (lasting 2 years). One of the first attacks was in Lvov where 72 Jews were killed and 443 wounded.

1918: Polish soldiers organize a pogrom against Jews of Galicia, Poland.

1919: In an interview with the Sultan, Hahambashi assures him that Jews will never forget that when they were persecuted in other countries, Turkey welcomed them and that, if they had reason for complaint in recent years, it was directed rather against the regime which had been disastrous for all elements of the population, than against the Turkish people.

1929: Birthdate of Brooklyn born comedian Stanley Myron Handelman. By the time he died on August 5, 2007 at the age of 77 Handeleman had enjoyed a successful career as a television and nightclub comedian.
1935: U.S. Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, NYC Mayor Fiorello La Guardia and 800 others honored Rebekah Kohut's 50 years of communal work at a special dinner. Chaired by the novelist Fannie Hurst, the dinner assembled a wide array of political, cultural, and philanthropic notables who spoke of Kohut's varied contributions and her efforts to apply scientific principles to charitable work. Kohut was a notable activist in the Jewish and secular communities in the areas of education, social welfare and women's organizational life. She came to the United States from Hungary as a child, growing up in Richmond and San Francisco where her father served as a rabbi. In her early twenties, she married the traditionalist New York rabbi Alexander Kohut, a widower with 8 children, 6 under the age of 13. Rebecca devoted herself chiefly to these children and to her husband's scholarly work until his death in 1894. In succeeding years, Kohut immersed herself in the expanding world of Jewish women's organizational life and in the financial support of her family. She was the first president of the New York Section of the National Council of Jewish Women, gave public lectures on Jewish subjects, and opened a private school in cooperation with her stepchildren. During World War I, she became involved in employment work, which led to her role as an advisor on unemployment to New York governor Franklin D. Roosevelt in the early 1930s. Her efforts to bring relief to devastated European Jewish communities after World War I led to her leading role in convening the World Congress of Jewish Women in Vienna in 1923 and being elected as the organization's first president.

1938: The British House of Commons objects to German persecution of minorities.

1943: Future Nobel Prize winnner Dr. Arthur Kornberg married Sylvy Ruth Levy, also a biochemist of note. She worked closely with Kornberg and contributed significantly to the discovery of DNA polymerase.

1943: In a review entitled “A Revolutionist’s Testament” Saul Bellow examines the newly published Arrival and Departure by Arthur Kosetler.

1946: Birthdate of Actress Goldie Hawn.

1948: The Sunday morning religious program "Lamp Unto My Feet" first aired over CBS television. It became one of TV's longest-running network shows, and aired through January 1979.

1948: Israeli soldiers jam the biblical city of Beersheba to hear piano concertos played by Leonard Bernstein.

1948: It was announced in Tel Aviv today that “the picking of citrus fruit will begin throughout Israel this week, with the prospect of a crop almost equaling last season's in Jewish-owned groves but altogether of a little more than one-third of the pre-war production in Palestine.”

1959: Max Baer passed away. Baer was heavyweight boxing champion in 1934. He was 49 at the time of his death.

1959: Jack Benny, on the violin, played a duet with pianist Richard Nixon, then Vice President of the United States.

1961: New Square, the first Chassidic town in the U.S., elected its mayor.

1965: The port of Ashdod port opened for business

1965: The Central Council of the Sephardic Jewish Brotherhood of America created a Golden Jubilee Committee to celebrate the Brotherhood's fiftieth anniversary. At the time there were over 2,500 members of the Brotherhood.

1985: Jonathan Pollard and his wife were arrested and charged with spying for Israel. Pollard, who had worked for Naval Intelligence, had passed on information to Israel regarding Arab capabilities. Pollard was caught as he was trying to enter the Israeli Embassy in Washington. The Pollard affair caused great embarrassment to Israel both from the American perspective and also due to Israel's refusal to support him once he was caught. He was given a life sentence, and despite numerous requests from Israel for clemency he is still in prison.

1990: Michael Milken was sentenced to 10 years for security law violations

1991: David "Sonny" Werblin passed away. For most Americans, Werblin is best remembered for his purchase of the New York Jets in 1963. Werblin then used his fortune to draft the AFL’s first super-star, Joe Namath. Namath would lead Werblin’s Jets to victory in Super Bowl III, an event that would change the face of professional football.

1999: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or about topics of Jewish interest including Yosl Rakover Talks To God by Zvi Kolitz, Translated by Carol Brown, Village of a Million Spirits: A Novel of the Treblinka Uprising by Ian MacMillan, In The Family Way: An Urban Comedy by Lynne Sharon Schwartz

2004: In an article entitled “At Holocaust Museum, Turning a Number Into A Name,” the New York Times reports on plans for Yad Vashem to make its lists of Jewish victims of the Holocaust, along with biographical information available on line.

2004: The New York Times book section features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or on topics of special Jewish interest including Breath: Poems by Philip Levine

2005: Prime Minster Ariel Sharon asked President Moshe Katsav on to dissolve the Knesset, just hours after he sent shockwaves across the political system with his decision to quit the Likud and form a new centrist party. Sharon formally announced that he had left the Likud and had formed a new party called National Responsibility.

2006: Southern California coastal authorities have decided to allow a beachfront eruv - a boundary that makes it possible for observant Jews to carry objects on Shabbat - to be built in the state for the first time. The eruv will surround sections of Santa Monica, Los Angeles and Marina del Rey.

2007: The planned chopping down of the chestnut tree that comforted Anne Frank as she hid from the Nazis did not take place thanks to a court order issued on November 20,2007 ordering city officials to into ways to save the 150 year old tree.

2007: “Yiddish Theatre: A Love Story” opens at the Two Boots Pioneer theater in Manhattan. This new documentary film is about Zypora Spaisman the amazing woman who has kept the oldest running Yiddish Theater in America alive. Zypora Spaisman is a Holocaust survivor who conquers all hearts in her passion for art, life and Yiddish.

2008: President Shimon Peres returns to Israel after a three-day state visit to Great Britain where he met with dignitaries, visited Parliament, delivered a lecture at Balliol College, Oxford University's oldest college, and met with Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Charles and the Prime Minister.

2008: In Manhattan, the 92nd Street Y presents “An Exploration of the Seven Deadly,” during which Aviad Kleinberg, one of the most prominent intellectuals in Israel examines the seven deadly sins with his trademark insight and deadpan humor. “What is wrong with a little sloth? Where would haute cuisine be without gluttony? Where would we all be without our parents’ lust? Can consumer culture survive without envy and greed? And with all humility, why shouldn’t we be proud? Journey through Jewish, Christian and Greco-Roman thoughts on sin, and examine the unchanging passions that make us human.” Aviad Kleinberg is Professor of History at Tel Aviv University and the author of Prophets in Their Own Country: Living Saints and the Making of Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages and Flesh Made Word: Saints' Stories and the Western Imagination