This Day, July 1, In Jewish History

July 1 In Jewish History

70 C.E.: Titus set up battering rams to assault the walls of Jerusalem.

1388: Jews of Lithuania received a Charter of Privilege.

1569: The Union of Lublin joins The Kingdom of Poland and the Great Duchy of Lithuania into a united country called the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth or the Republic of Both Nations. This had to be an improvement in the situation for the Jews of Lithuania who were governed by statutes that read in part, "The Jews shall not wear costly clothing, nor gold chains, nor shall their wives wear gold or silver ornaments. The Jews shall not have silver mountings on their sabers and daggers; they shall be distinguished by characteristic clothes; they shall wear yellow caps, and their wives kerchiefs of yellow linen, in order that all may be enabled to distinguish Jews from Christians." During the 15th and 16th centuries the Jews of Poland enjoyed an increasing amount of political autonomy and economic well being which would come to a crashing end with the Ukrainian uprisings in the 17th centuries.

1651: Poland was victorious over the Cossacks. The Jews were allowed to return to their lands.

1776: First Jew lost his life in the American Revolution.

1798: In Switzerland, special taxes on the Jews were finally abolished.

1862: Russian Jews were granted permission to print Jewish books

1863: First day of the Battle of Gettysburg. For more information about Jews in the Civil War see http://www.jewish-history.com/civilwar.htm.

1867: With the passage of the British North America Act, Great Britain officially recognizes the Dominion of Canada as an independent country. Jews had been living in Canada since the British took it from France in the 17th century. There were enough Jews living in Montreal to allow for the creation of a synagogue called Shearith Israel. While most members of the small Jewish community lived in various towns in the eastern part of the country enough Jews arrived in British Columbia during the Gold Rush that a synagogue was constructed in Victoria in 1862. At the time that Britain recognized the independence of Canada there were about 1,000 Jews living in “our neighbor to the North.” This number would explode shortly thereafter with the beginning of the immigration of Russian Jews.

1873: Prince Edward Island joins the Canadian Confederation. Apparently, Jews did not start settling in Prince Edward Island until the first decade of the 20th century with the arrival of Louis, Israel and Abie Block. The three brothers were from Riga and may have been the Jews who were described in 1908 newspaper article as having celebrated Passover in this part of Canada.

1878: At the insistence of Prussian Prime Minister Otto von Bismarck the Congress of Berlin incorporated into the Treaty of Berlin an article intended to provide the Jews of Romania with the opportunity for full citizenship. Unfortunately, the Romanians evaded the article and only a hand full of Jews would gain citizenship.

1880: (12th of Tammuz): Birthdate of Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok who would become the Sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe. The Rebbe would overcome a terrifying imprisonment at the hands of Stalin’s henchmen in the 1920’s. Later, he would escape the clutches of the Nazis and settle in Brooklyn where he revived the cause of Chabad-Lubavitch. The Rebbe would launch, what would become under his son-in-law who was the Seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe, one of history’s most successful Jewish outreach programs.

1898: In the Spanish-American War Teddy Roosevelt & his Rough Riders charged up San Juan Hill in Cuba. The Rough Riders was a cavalry unit recruited by Roosevelt that drew on every strata of American life from Western cowboys to Yankee Bluebloods. Several Jews served with the united including Jacob Wilbusky, the first Roughrider killed in action. The Roughriders were forced to leave their horses back the United States so the famous charge was made on foot.

1899: The Conference of the English Zionist Federation comes to an end.

1900: Herzl turns to Prime Minister Koerber and asks him to use his influence with the Sultan to permit the Rumanian Jews to immigrate into Turkey and to receive him, in order to discuss the question of colonization and settlement.

1902: Birthdate of Oscar winning director Billy Wyler. Wyler directed many classics including the World War II tear-jerker Mrs. Miniver. Ironically, his greatest hit was The Best Years of Our Lives, a film that described the return of four veterans to civilian life after World War II. Once again, the Jews played a major role in crafting the cultural myths of Middle American Culture.

1907: Birthdate of famed sportscaster Bill Stern.

1907: The SS Cassel entered the port of Galveston, Texas with 87 Russian Jews aboard, heralding the start of the Galveston Movement - an organized attempt to bring Jews to less populated parts of the US.

1908: Birthdate of Estee Lauder. Lauder was born Josephine Esther Mentzer, the daughter of Hungarian Jewish immigrants. She married Joseph Lauter who changed the family named to Lauder in the late 1930’s. Mrs. Lauder was CEO of Estee Lauder’s Cosmetics. . She was one of several Jewish women who found fame and fortune in the cosmetics business. She was the only woman on Time magazine's 1998 list of the 20 most influential business geniuses of the 20th century. She passed away in 2004 at the age of 97.

1920: Sir Herbert Samuel, a British statesman was appointed High Commissioner of Eretz-Israel. His first official act was to grant amnesty to political prisoners including Jabotinsky. He governed the British Mandate for five years. Sir Herbert governed as a British official, not as a Jew and there were clashes between him and some Zionist leaders.

1921: Dr. Thomas G. Allen, Secretary of the Oriental Institute announced today that the thanks to a $60,000 grant by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. the University of Chicago will excavate the site of Armageddon or Megiddo.

1923: Fast of the 17th of Tammuz

1927: (12th of Tammuz): Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok is liberated from his death sentence and imprisonment in the Soviet Union. With the outbreak of World War II, the Sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe would make his way to New York where he would establish the headquarters of Chabad-Lubavitch in Crown Heights. From there, he would launch what would become a highly successful world-wide outreach program designed to educate Jews and heighten their awareness of their heritage.

1930: At the morning session of the International Wailing Wall Commission, Rabbi Ben Zion Meyer Uziel, Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv, described Jewish prayer rituals conducted at the Wall declaring that the High Commissioner’s recent ban on the use of the Torah Scroll, Lulav, tefillin and tallit was unacceptable. While questioning Rabbi Uziel, Arab leader Abdul Auni implied that the Zionists were using bogus claims of the right to worship at the Wall as a form of propaganda to recruit Jews to settle in Palestine. At this afternoon's meeting of the International Wailing Wall Commission, the three commissioners watched a movie filmed in 1911 showing Jewish men and women praying at the wall, Jewish worshippers sitting on benches and Jewish women kissing the stones of the Wall. The commissioners pronounced the film as authentic and thus it became further evidence of the long standing connection of the Jewish people to the Wall. The International Wailing Wall Commission was established by the League of Nations after Arab rioters violently denied Jews access to the Western Wall

1930: Birthdate of Carol Doris Schatz, the Philadelphia native who would marry Noam Chomsky in 1949 and gain fame in her own right as a linguist and educator. Mrs. Chomsky passed away at the age of 78 in December of 2008.

1932: Over the next 11 months (June 1, 1933), the ZOA will clear the cases of 1,622 people wishing to settle in Palestine.

1933: With a message of "cordial greetings and best wishes" from President Roosevelt and a declaration that "the calamity that has overtaken the 600.000 Jews in Germany has cast a shadow over everything else in Jewish life," the Zionist Organization of America opened its convention today in Chicago. With five thousand delegates and observers in attendance, this meeting is described as being the largest in the history of the ZOA. At this evening’s opening session at the Palmer House, Moriss Rothenberg, President of the ZOA reported that 20,000 Jews had entered the National Home in the last 18 months and that during 1932 12 million dollars in new investments had been made in Palestine. While Rothenberg had words of praise for the British High Commissioner, Sir Arthur Grenfeel Wauchope, he was highly critical of the Mandatory Government (the British) for not increasing the allotment of immigration certificates in light of the events in Germany.

1933 The German government states that "Reich Chancellor Hitler still belongs to the Catholic Church and has no intention of leaving it."

1934: Birthdate of director Sydney Pollack. His hits have included Tootsie and Presumed Innocent.

1934: Erich Gans was murdered in Dachau. It was the last such murder for ten months. The Jewish population at Dachau was almost non-existent at the time since most had been killed or released by end of 1933.

1934: The New York Times reviews “From Nebuchadnezzar to Hitler” by Danish author Peter Hemmer Gudme. In this sympathetic study of the Zionist movement which the reviewer is sure will be translated in English, the non-Jewish Gudme traces the ancient connection of the Jewish people with their homeland before describing modern efforts beginning with Pinsker, Hess and Herzl to create a modern Jewish home in Palestine. Gudme will die at the hands of the Nazis in Copenhagen in 1945.

1935: In London, Sir Francis Abraham Montefiore passed away. Montefiore was the head of the London Portuguese community and was a great philanthropist

1936: The Palestine Post reported from London that the House of Commons discussed the question of the composition of the proposed Royal Commission for Palestine. The Colonial Secretary, Mr. Ormsby-Gore, explained that the appointment of women members to the commission was undesirable, due to the Moslem and Orthodox Jews' susceptibilities. The Christian communities of Beit Jala and Kafr Kana were warned by Arab terrorists that they must deliver 60 young men as volunteers for their ranks, or face the consequences. There were sporadic shootings, bombs thrown and trees uprooted throughout the country. Two British soldiers were hurt by flying debris during the demolition of houses in the old quarter of Jaffa.

1937: The Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art) exhibition of "unacceptable" artwork by Jews and others opens in Munich. A concurrent event of "approved" art held nearby attracts far fewer people than the Entartete Kunst

1937: Pastor Martin Niemöller's anti-Semitism does not prevent the Nazis from arresting him because of his opposition to Hitler

1938: Under a proposal called the Sosua Project, the Dominican Republic offers to accept 100,000 European Jewish refugees, to be settled in an area near Santo Domingo, in return for payment of millions of dollars from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC). (Under the plan the Dominican Republic actually admitted on only about 500 Jews by 1940 when immigration was halted)

1940: The America First Committee is formed. It is the most significant American isolationist group, and it is also infiltrated by Nazis, who are working to prevent American intervention in Europe. Several prominent Americans speak in support of the committee. Many in Congress attack the Jews of Hollywood as attempting to involve America in opposition to Hitler.

1940: Bloody anti-Jewish riots erupt in cities throughout Romania

1940: In a letter to German Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick, Bishop Theophil Wurm, head of the provincial Lutheran Church at Württemberg, Germany, objects to "euthanasia" killings at the nearby Grafaneck crippled-children's institution; See September 5, 1940.

1940: In Holland, a collaborationist propaganda group, Nederlandse Unie (Netherlands Union), is established.

1940: A Jewish ghetto is established at Bedzin, Poland.

1941 (6th of Tammuz, 5701): The first day of a three day killing spree in Drohobych, during which Ukrainians, assisted by Whermacht soldiers killed three hundred Jews.

1941: A Pogrom in Jassy, the cradle of Rumanian anti-Semitism claimed 5000 Jewish lives.

1941: Birthdate of Dr. Alfred G. Gilman recipient of the 1994 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

1941: British code breakers monitoring radio traffic coming from German troops in the Soviet Union become aware of Nazi massacres of Soviet Jews.

1941: Two thousand members of Minsk, Belorussia's intelligentsia are executed by German troops in a nearby forest.

1941: More than 2500 Jews are slaughtered at Zhitomir, Ukraine.

1941 (6th of Tammuz, 5701): During an Einsatzkommando Aktion (murder operation) at Mielnica, Ukraine, a Jew named Abraham Weintraub hurls himself on a German officer and shatters the officer's teeth. Weintraub is immediately shot.

1941: In the Bialystok region of Poland, Nazis murder 300 members of the Jewish intelligentsia.

1941: German killing squads begin to murder Jews remaining in Kishinev, Romania.

1941: The Hungarian government undertakes a mass roundup of almost 18,000 Jewish refugees for deportation to Kamenets-Podolski, Ukraine.

1941: Twenty-two-year-old Jew Haya Dzienciolski finds a pistol, leaves Novogrudok, Ukraine, and helps to organize a group of young partisans in nearby forests.

1941 (6th of Tammuz, 5701): One hundred Jews are murdered at Lyakhovichi, Belorussia.

1941 (6th of Tammuz, 5701): Hundreds of Jews are killed at Plunge, Lithuania.

1941 In the Ukrainian town of Koritz, Nazi troops begin what would become a three day murder spree. The Jews are forced to prepare three burial pits, one each for men, women, and children. For sport, a man's corpse is propped atop one of the pits, in which some Jews have been buried alive.

1941: Members of the Einsatzgruppen, the Wehrmacht, and Esalon Special, a Romanian unit, begin murdering the Jews of Bessarabia in eastern Romania. By August 31st, they will have killed more than 150,000 Jews.

1942: Hundreds of German Jews are deported to the ghetto/camp at Theresienstadt, Czechoslovakia. In Paderborn, Germany, all Jewish orphans are deported to Theresienstadt.

1942: Seven trains of Jewish deportees leave Westerbork, Holland, for the Auschwitz death camp

1942: At Kleck, Belorussia, a few dozen Jews break out and join partisans.

1942 (16th of Tammuz, 5702): The Jewish community at Gorodenka, Ukraine, is wiped out.

1942: Extermination activities at the Sobibór death camp are temporarily halted for railway construction and enlargement of the camp's gas chambers.

1943: In an American radio broadcast, U.S. Congressman Emanuel Celler excoriates the U.S. government for its continuing silence on Nazi treatment of European Jews. This is the same Congressman Celler whom Senator Bilbo of Mississippi will refer to as a “kike” while giving a speech in the Upper Chamber; a reference that brings no response from those who hear it and who will guide the 1964 Civil Rights Act to a successful in the House of Representatives.

1943: The American Women's International League for Peace and Freedom estimates that millions of Jews have already been murdered by the Germans in Poland, and that the American government and people share in the guilt for these atrocities because they are complacent cowards covered "with a thick layer of prejudice."

1944: During the month of July, Jewish-Soviet partisans from Poland and Lithuania are active behind the lines at Lublin, Poland, and Kovno, Vilna, and Siauliai, Lithuania, as Soviet troops approach from the east.

1944: The Red Army liberates Lvov, Ukraine.

1944: The SS completes the evacuation of the death camp at Majdanek

1944: The SS evacuates the concentration camp at Kovno, Lithuania

1944: Neutral Switzerland ends long-standing, restrictive Jewish-immigration standards and admits all Jewish refugees who wish and are able to enter.

1944: Jewish-American Lieutenant Colonel Murray C. Bernays is assigned by the U.S. Army Civil Affairs Division to collect evidence of war crimes committed against American servicemen. Bernays begins to formulate his concept of Nazism as a criminal conspiracy, which will be central to the Nuremberg Tribunal of 1945-46.

1944: As the war put additional strains on the German labor force, 1,000 Jews were taken from Birkenau and put to work within Germany.

1948: On the night of July 1 - 2, the first shipment of arms to be used by the Jewish forces arrived from Czechoslovakia by air. The arms were landed in a single DC-4 trans-port. The twin engine plane delivered 200 rifles, 40 machine guns and 150,000 rounds of ammunition. In an act of daring, the plane landed at an abandoned British air field which was illuminated by intermittent flashes of light so that the British forces would find out what was happening. The Jewish state was still six weeks way from reality and at this point in time, the British were doing all they could to disarm the Jews even as the Arab attacks grew bolder and more deadly. The weapons would be used in Operation Nachshon, the desperate attempt on the part of the Yishuv to open the road from the coast to Jerusalem, thus ending the Arab siege of Jerusalem.

1951: Six Arab terrorists were killed in two engagements with security forces in Emek Hefer, Israel. A number of other infiltrators fled into the Jordanian-occupied territory across the border.

1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that six Arab terrorists were killed in two engagements with security forces in Emek Hefer. A number of other infiltrators fled into the Jordanian-occupied territory across the border. Israel presented to the US State Department a detailed aide-memoire urging the settlement of Israel's $1.5 billion restitution claim against Germany. The police had so far examined 150 war-crimes cases since the Knesset passed the War Crimes Law, directed at persons who cooperated with the Nazi regime during the Holocaust. The experience of the first few cases had raised some doubts as to the possibility of obtaining convincing evidence against the accused.

1971: In one of those ironies of “progress,” while bagel production and consumption soared to new heights, Local 338, the fabled bagel bakers local, ceased to exist and Local 3 acquired a Bagel Division.

1976: Terrorists in Entebbe, Uganda, still held 200 hostages from the Air France jet, hijacked four days earlier on a flight from Tel Aviv to Paris. They threatened to kill all remaining hostages and blow up the plane if their ransom demands were not met by two o'clock. A special Air France plane carrying 47 hostages, released earlier, arrived in Paris.

1984(1st of Tammuz, 5744): Moshe Feldenkrais passed away. Born in the Ukraine in 1901, Feldenkrais moved to Palestine in 1918 where he continued his education. After living in France before World War II and serving with the British Navy in World War II he returned to Israel. He was a renowned physicist and judo expert, who developed a method of education and self-awareness training called The Feldenkrais method.

1991(19th of Tammuz, 5751): Michael Landon, born Eugene Horowitz, passed away at the age of 54. Landon gained fame for his portrayal of Little Joe on the television western, Bonanza. He gained additional fame for his work in front and behind the camera in another television hit, Little House on the Prairie.

1993: Anne Lapidus Lerner became Vice Chancellor of the Seminary, the first woman to hold that post. As Vice Chancellor, Lerner was one of the highest-ranking women in all of American Jewish institutional life. In that role, she devoted her energy to adult education, working to bring Jewish education to the lay community. After earning bachelor’s, master's, and doctoral degrees from Harvard, Anne Lapidus Lerner joined the faculty of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America (JTS) in 1969, becoming the first American-born woman to hold a full-time position there. JTS trains rabbis and cantors for the Conservative movement and offers a range of masters and doctoral degree programs. Today, Lerner is an assistant professor in the Department of Jewish Literature at JTS, where she teaches courses in Hebrew and American Jewish poetry, modern Jewish literature, and the portrayal of women in Jewish literature. In addition, she is the director of the JTS Jewish Women's Studies Program, which she also founded, and Director of the Jewish Feminist Research Group. In 2001-02, she was a visiting lecturer at the Harvard Divinity School. Lerner has published two books and is at work on a third. In Passing the Love of Women: A Study of Gide's "Saül" and Its Biblical Roots Lerner examines how the Biblical book of Samuel inspired a novel by French author André Gide. In Who Has Not Made Me a Man: The Movement for Equal Rights for Women in American Judaism Lerner discusses the interaction between Judaism and the modern American feminist movement. A new book on the image of Eve in Jewish literature is due to be completed soon. In addition, Lerner has published a range of articles, and sits on the editorial boards of the journals Women's League Outlook, Hadassah, Judaism, Nashim, and Lilith.

1993 (12th of Tammuz, 5753): Olga Khaikov a Jewish immigrant from Russia and the mother of an 11 year old daughter was killed when terrorists tried to seize a bus near French Hill in Jerusalem.

1994: PLO chairman Yasser Arafat drove from Egypt into Gaza, returning to Palestinian land after 27 years in exile.

1998: First Lady Hillary Clinton, her daughter Chelsea and Secretary of State Madeline Albright visited the Ohel Rachel Synagogue in Shanghai, China, accompanied by Rabbi Schneier. In a speech on this date the First Lady commented, "So, for [the Ohel Rachel Synagogue] to be restored, I think, is a very good example of respect for religious differences and an appreciation for the importance of faith in one's life."

2000: Actor Walter Mattheau passes away. Born Walter Matthow in 1920, Mattheau began work at the age of 11 selling candy and playing bit parts in a Yiddish theatre on the Lower East Side. Years later he claimed that his birth name was Matasschanskayasky. According to his son, his father did this as a prank. However, the myth has become accepted as fact by many sources. Mattheau had a long, successful career playing in films some of the best of which paired him with Jack Lemmon. These included, "The Fortune Cookie," a re-make of "Front Page," and that greatest of hits, "The Odd Couple."

2000: Publication of Haviva Ner-David's book, "Life on the Fringes: A Feminist Journey Toward Traditional Rabbinic Ordination." The book, which is part memoir and part halakhic commentary, tells the story of Ner-David's integration of feminism and Orthodox Judaism over a lifetime and argues for the ordination of women as Orthodox rabbis. Haviva Ner-David was born and raised in a modern Orthodox family in the New York City suburbs, attending traditional day schools where girls and boys sat separately for daily prayer and boys were taught to recite the traditional blessing thanking God "for not having made me a woman." Though raised with a love of Jewish tradition, she also struggled to accept traditional teachings about women's limitations. Study at New York's Drisha Institute and a subsequent move to Jerusalem left Ner-David with a thorough education in Jewish law and the conviction that new roles and opportunities for women could be found within tradition. Her book explores both her personal journey and many of the specific halakhic issues that have been taken on by feminist Jews. Throughout the book, Ner-David also reflects on what she will teach her sons and daughters about Judaism, feminism, and the roles of men and women. In Jerusalem, Ner-David found a teacher who was receptive to her desire for ordination. Like his student, Rabbi Aryeh Strikovsky believes there are precedents in Jewish history for Orthodox women rabbis. On the eve of Passover 2006, Ner-David was ordained as a rabbi in Jerusalem. Rabbi Strikovsky signed her ordination, but did not give Ner-David the title of Rabbi, noting that it is the role of the community to determine her official title. Two other Orthodox women, Mimi Feigelson and Eveline Goodman-Thau, claim to have been privately ordained, but their ordinations are not recognized by any Orthodox seminary, synagogue, or official body.

2000: The judge in the Revolutionary Court in Shiraz announced the verdicts on the 13 Jews on trial for spying for Israel. The harsh verdicts against 10 of the defendants range from 4 to 13 years. The three defendants, who had been out on bail since February, were acquitted. The international community, Jewish groups around the world and human rights groups vocally condemned this verdict and expressed outrage at the lack of due process throughout the trial.

2004: Actor Marlon Brando passed away. No, Brando was not Jewish. But he did have this to say about Jews. “Marlon Brando…once told an interviewer that, per capita ‘Jews have contributed more to American…culture than any other single group.’ Without them, the actor claimed, ‘we wouldn’t have music,’ ‘we wouldn’t have much theater,’ and we wouldn’t have “all the songs that you love to sing.’”

2005: The New York Times reported that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg had moved decisively to deal with killing of a African-American man by two white males in Howard Beach. The Times favorably compared Bloomberg’s swift action with the city’s reaction to a racially inspired killing in the same neighborhood in 1986.

2005: The New York Times reported that Time’s editor-in-chief Norman Pearlstine made the decision to follow a court order and turn over a reporter’s documents to a grand jury investigating a leak of a CIA operative’s identity. Pearlstine wrestled with the compelling issues – freedom of the press versus the need to submit to the rule of law – and he came down on the side of the latter. The decision was not an easy one for a man who was a lawyer as well as the head of one of America’s flagship communication corporations.

2005: The New York Times reported that Bank of America had agreed to buy MBNA. MBNA was founded by Alfred Lerner who passed away in 2002. Learner supported numerous philanthropies including the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous. The JFR seeks out to fulfill the age old injunction to seek out and recognize righteousness. In particular, the JFR works to help aged and indigent righteous gentiles who helped save Jews during the Shoah.

2006: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “The Din In the Head: Essays” by Cynthia Ozick.

2006: Rabbi Dr. Louis Jacobs, who founded the British branch of the Conservative Movement and was voted the greatest Jew in the history of Britain's Jewish community last year, passed away at the age of 86.

2006: Arnie Eisen office as Chancellor-elect of the Jewish Theological Seminary


2007: Arnie Eisen, who took office as Chancellor-elect of the Jewish Theological Seminary on July 1, 2006, assumes the position full time.

2007: The Opening Day game of the Israel Baseball League is broadcast on a delayed basis on PBS in major US markets.

2007: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback edition of “American Vertigo: Traveling America in the Footsteps of TocquevillyBernard-Henri Lévy and “The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope by Jonathan Alter.

2007: The Sunday Washington Post book section featured a review of a collection of here-to-for unpublished stories by Primo Levi entitled A Tranquil Star. According to the review, those who think of Levi only in terms of being a “Holocaust writer” will be pleasantly surprised by the wide ranging topics and unique style displayed in this posthumously published tome.

2008: Lauren Weisberger, author of the bestselling novel The Devil Wears Prada, reads from and signs her new book, Chasing Harry Winston, at a Borders Books in suburban Virginia.

2009: In Cedar Rapids, IA, meeting of the Hadassah book club discusses “Courtesan,” a novel by Dora Levy Mossanen.

2009: After 29 years of serving as supporting character alongside Marvel greats like the Incredible Hulk and the X-Men, Sabra, the alias of Ruth-Bat Seprah, mutant superhero and former agent, makes her first headlining print appearance in the Marvel anthology Astonishing Tales #6. Sabra's first solo appearance is the work of Matt Yocum, who by day serves as the US Air Force's representative to the Israeli government and by night writes comic books. Yocum, who is not Jewish, has long been involved with the State of Israel. His first visit to the country was in 1992 with the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, and he spent four weeks living on Kibbutz Beit Ha'emek, close to the coastal city of Nahariya. In 2002 he found himself in Israel again, this time as an exchange officer doing engineering for the Israeli government. Based on his previous experience in the country, Yocum was selected to come for a third time in 2006 to work in the attaché office for the US Air Force. Using three elements unique to his life in Israel, Yocum created a story about a member of the Air Force at a diplomatic reception in Israel, which sums up his existence here. "I wanted to take the experience I had in Israel and bring it to the people who don't live here," he explains. "The vast majority of the people who read the story will not have been to the country, and they will not realize that there are things we take for granted here - one being that everyone has to serve in the army. In the US, less than one percent of the population serves, and here it's part of a natural dialogue with a high-schooler." "At the end of the day, I don't think it's going to change any ideas about Israel," he says. "It shows a piece of what it's like to live in the country and what it's like to serve here."

2009: President Shimon Peres completes his trip to Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan