This Day, July 3, In Jewish History

July 3 In Jewish History

323: Constantine the Great defeated Licinius at the Battle of Adrianople. Constantine ruled the western half of the Roman Empire. Licinius ruled the eastern half. In 313 the two rulers had issued the Edict of Milan which opened the Roman Empire to Christianity. In 320, Licinius reject the edict. These led to a clash of political and religious power that was settled at the Battle of Adrianople. When the war ended, Constantine and Christianity were secure in their respective positions of power and the history of the Jews of Europe would take a turn for the worse.

987: Hugh Capet is crowned King of France, the first of the Capetian dynasty. “The Capetian dynasty lasted for more than 300 years. Capetian rule was weak, especially during the first hundred years. Thus each duchy decided for itself how to treat its Jews. The Church gained enormous influence over local affairs and promoted the idea that the Jews were in league with the Devil - declaring them the antichrist".

1608: Quebec City was founded by French explorer Samuel Champlain. Prior to 1760, when the British took Canada from France, officially there were no Jews living in Quebec or any other part of the French colony. The King of France had decreed that only Roman Catholics could settle in the colony. This declaration was aimed at potential Protestant colonists, but it hit Jews as well. The first known Jew settled in Quebec in 1767.

1844: Birthdate of Dankmar Adler, American architect and engineer. Adler was born in Germany, the son of a Rabbi. His name is first name is a combination of the German word for thanks –‘dank’- and the Hebrew word for bitter – ‘mar’. Adler’s father created the name since Adler’s mother died in childbirth. The Adler family moved to Chicago where young Adler learned his trade as a draftsman. He enlisted in the Union Army during the Civil War fighting his way across Kentucky, Tennessee and Georgia. After the war, Adler designed or helped build a variety of buildings including The Stock Exchange in Chicago and Carnegie Hall in New York. He also built Temples and Synagogues in Chicago. Frank Lloyd Wright, one of America’s most famous architects trained in Adler’s offices. Adler passed away in 1900 after having just completed Temple Isaiah in Chicago

1849: The French entered Rome in order to restore Pope Pius IX to power. After his return to power Pius re-instituted the Ghetto for the Jews of Rome 1850. In 1858, he would gain greater fame (or infamy) during the Mortara Affair during which Pius refused to return young Edgardo to his Jewish family.

1863: Third and climactic day of the Battle of Gettysburg. During Picket’s Charge, an attack on the Union center at place called Cemetery Ridge. The Rebels reached what was called High Water Mark. The Union line held. The war would last for almost two years, but the tide had been turned. The “last best hope of man” would survive. The United States, with all of its freedom, would become home to one of the largest and most dynamic Jewish communities in the four thousand year history of the Chosen People.

1866: Prussia defeats Austria at the Battle of Königgratz. The victory seals the victory of the Prussians over the Austrians during Austro-Prussian War which lasted as scant six weeks. This little known battle is one of the most decisive in modern history because of all the major events that flowed from it. The victory removed Austria as a power among Germanic states. This opened the way for German unification under Prussian dominance which lead to the Franco-Prussian War, which led to World War I which led to the Shoah. The defeat of Austria led the Austrians to turn to the rest of the empire and create the Austro-Hungarian Empire which gave empowered the Hungarian nationalist which led to granting of full rights to the Jews of the empire who gave the world everybody from Freud to Herzl and a whole lot more. And this only scratches the surface of the impact of this one brief battle.

1869: In Germany (Prussia), all restrictions against Jews were lifted. After the war of 1866 Prussia increased its territory to include Hanover, Hesse-Kassel Saxony, and other territory that became part of the North German Confederation. Under the initiative of the Liberal party, full rights were extended to Jews including serving in public positions. By April 16, 1871 it became Imperial Law and was extended to the entire empire. Although later reaction revoked most of this freedom, the discrimination never returned to the level existing in the "Middle Ages" - until the rise of Hitler.

1879: In London, a formal announcement was made that the three sons of the recently deceased Baron Lionel de Rothschild will carry on their father’s business activities.

1883: Birthdate of author Franz Kafka. The famous Czech born author gained his real fame after his death. After many false starts Kafka earned a Doctorate of Laws and then took a mind-numbing job with an insurance company. Ill health finally enabled him to work shorter hours, which gave him time to pursue his writings. Three of his best known works are the Trial, The Castle and America. Kafka became famous in spite of himself. He had left word that at the time of his death all of his manuscripts were to be destroyed. Fortunately his friend Max Brod disobeyed him and had the works published. Kafka had planned to immigrate to Palestine before his untimely death in 1924 hastened by the effects of tuberculosis. On being Jewish Kafka wrote, "Not one calm second is granted to the Western Jew. Everything has to be earned, not only the present and the future but also the past…"

1890: Idaho joins the Union becoming the 43rd star on the Star Spangled Banner. Despite a comparatively small Jewish population, Idaho was the first state to elect a Jew as Governor. On his second try for the top spot Moses Alexander was elected in 1914. He served from 1915 until 1919. A German immigrant, Alexander had previously been elected Mayor of Boise. Alexander was not casual about his Jewish identity. His wife was a Jew by choice, having converted when she married Alexander.

1903: Pogrom began in Bialystok.

1904: Theodor Herzl away at the age of 44. One person can make a difference. “If you will it, it is no dream!”

1923: Mayer Dizengoff, the Mayor of Tel Aviv, sails from New York City aboard the Aquitania.

1925: Birthdate of Tony Curtis. Born Bernard Schwartz in the Bronx, Curtis was some times referred to as "a poor man's Cary Grant." One of his biggest hits came when he played opposite Grant in the film "The Pink Submarine." Other famous roles were in "Some Like It Hot" with costars Jack Lemmon and that famous Jewess, Marilyn Monroe and as the wisecracking New York born orderly in "Dr. Newman, M.D."

1929: At the opening meeting of the Assembly of the Elected, “the national body which elects the National Council of Palestine Jews, a dispute broke out between Dr. Ton, the presiding officer and revisionist leader Vladimir Jabotinsky. The dispute revolved around revisionist claims that several of their delegates were attacked by Labor delegates and was so intense the meeting was adjourned.

1933: In Chicago, the convention of the ZOA comes to a close.

1935: Sir Francis Montefiore, grandnephew of the noted philanthropist, Sir Moses Montefiore, passed away today at the age of 75

1936: German Jew Stefan Lux kills himself in the assembly room of the League of Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. The suicide is in protest of Germany's persecution of Jews.

1936: The Palestine Post reported from London that the Colonial Secretary, Mr. Ormsby Gore, told the House of Commons that "there were no provisions in the Covenant or Peace Treaties or the Mandate regarding the withdrawal of the Mandate from the Power entrusted with it." Hebron was fined a collective fine of £2,000 for ambushing an army patrol. Two British soldiers were hurt in this encounter. Ten suspected Jewish communists were rounded up by police in Tel Aviv and interned at the army's Sarafand detention camp. Questioned about a news item which appeared in an Arab newspaper, the management of the Jerusalem YMCA declared that it offered a platform on which young men, irrespective of their race, creed and religion could cooperate and meet in an atmosphere of congeniality and goodwill.

1937: Twenty-nine year old Brooklynite Moe Schultz returned today on the President Roosevelt from Palestine, where he said he had driven a truck for three years between the towns of Haifa and Tel-Aviv, a distance of ninety miles, and had many thrilling escapes from Arab snipers.

1941: At Nowogrodek, the Nazis sought fifty "volunteers" to be members of the Jewish council there. They are taken away and never seen again. Fifty more were shot in the town square.

1941: In Vilna, all the Jews were required to wear identity badges.

1941: One hundred Jews are murdered at Bialystok, Poland.

1941: In the Ukraine, 3500 Jews are killed at Zloczow and hundreds die at Drohobycz.

1941: Fifty Jews in Novogroduk, Belorussia, who volunteer for a German-organized Jewish council, "disappear." Another 50, selected at random, are shot in the town square to the accompaniment of music played by a German band.

1941: Soviet leader Joseph Stalin orders the establishment of partisan units to harass German troops in occupied Soviet territory. Jews would play an active role in these units. There were also units made up exclusively of Jewish partisans.

1943: Birthdate of self-promoting television news personality Geraldo Rivera. Rivera’s father was from Puerto Rico. After moving to New York he married a Jewish woman named Lily Friedman. Contrary to popular urban legend, Rivera’s original name was not Gerry Rivers. And he did not change his name to appeal to Hispanic audiences.

1944: Minsk was liberated from Nazi control by Soviet troops during Operation Bagration

1944: The British War Cabinet agrees to examine Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann's request for the formation of a Jewish Brigade to fight in the British Army, with the white and blue Star of David as its standard.

1946: Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis met for the first time in Atlantic City. They would become one of the leading comedy teams of their time. The Italian Crooner played straight man to the Jewish clown.

1947: Birthdate of brilliant attorney, Renaissance man and all-around great guy, David Robert Levin- a real Mensh. He is also one heck of a great brother!

1948: Rumors abound in besieged Jerusalem that a new road was being built that would bring supplies to the embattled city.

1949: Birthdate of world traveling computer whiz and pillar of the Cedar Rapids Jewish community, Bill Hurwitz

1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that the first reading of the Women's Equal Rights Bill was passed by the Knesset. The Knesset had also passed a bill empowering the government to float loans up to IL5m. from financial institutions to be applied to the defense budget. 128,223 new immigrants entered the country during the first six months of 1951. Since the state was established in 1948, 638,597 immigrants arrived.

1962: The Algerian War for Independence ends with Algeria gaining its independence from France. The end of the war with the Algerians marked a shift in French attitudes and policies in the Middle East. Under De Gaulle’s leadership, the French government sought to develop a power base among the Moslem nations of North Africa and the Near East. This meant a growing policy of hostility towards Israel that would ultimately lead the French government to attempt to block the delivery of patrol boats to Israel later in the decade. The naval craft had already been paid for when the French refused to deliver them so Israeli agents seized them and brought them to Haifa.

1964: President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Jewish political leaders played a major role in passing this piece of landmark legislation. Congressman Cellar, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, was the driving force in getting the bill through the House of Representative. Today we take the provisions of this anti-discrimination law for granted. It is difficult to believe how controversial it was forty years ago and what an act of political courage it took to support this law. Although thought of as a law to end racial discrimination, the law banned discrimination based on several criteria including religion.

1979: Thirty-four years after the end of World War II, the West German government voted to continue prosecution of Nazi war criminals by removing the statute of limitations on murder.

1982: Uri Avnery, the Israeli writer and knesset member who has traveled from the Irgun to the leftist peace movement met Yasser Arafat on during the "Battle of Beirut" — said to have been the first time an Israeli met personally with Arafat.

1997: Poet Adrienne Rich made headlines on by refusing to accept the National Medal for the Arts. “Ms Rich informed Jane Alexander, chair of the National Endowment for the Arts, that she would not accept the National Medal for the Arts. To accept the award, she felt, would be hypocritical in view of the country's widening socio-economic gap. In her typical hard-hitting style, Rich wrote that, "art—in my own case the art of poetry—means nothing if it simply decorates the dinner table of power which holds it hostage." Both the national recognition and Rich's principled refusal were emblematic of the place this poet has come to occupy in American culture.”

2001: Mordecai Richler passed away. Born in 1931, Richler was a prolific prize winning author. One of his most famous books was the “Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz,” which was later made into a movie starring Richard Dreyfus.

2005: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback editions of “The Missing Peace: The Inside Store of the Fight for Middle East Peace” by Dennis Ross and “Codex” by Lev Grossman

2006: In the following review of “Up, Up and Oy Vey!” by Simcha Weinstein, Louis Parks describes “the obvious parallels” between the origins of Superman and Biblical depiction of Moses.
A loving parent tries to save the life of a child by placing him in a basket—or space capsule—and sending him floating/blasting to safety. Found and adopted into a new family in his new world, Moses/Superman is still guided by the wisdom and counsel of his parent. He lives a double life with a secret identity. Moses eventually leads people from abuse to freedom. Superman rescues people from disasters and crime. Superman's creators, Jewish immigrant sons Jerry Siegel and Joel Shuster, invented the superhero in 1938 Cleveland, Ohio. They never declared Superman was Jewish and their ambiguity was probably intentional. Though they didn't give their hero a specific ethnicity or religion, there are hints at his Jewishness. In some of his earliest stories, Superman sometimes foiled the plans of thinly disguised German Nazis, whose persecution of Jews already was infamous. Americans may not have noticed, but apparently the Nazis snapped to the implications, quickly blasting the new comic. Weinstein writes that in 1940, Nazi propaganda minister Josef Goebbels denounced Superman as Jewish. Weinstein also "recounts the Jewish influence on superheroes such as Batman, Captain America, the Hulk, the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man and X-Men, most of whom were created by Jewish artists."

2007: “Friendship: An Expose” by Joseph Epstein goes on sale to the general public.

2007: Much to the delight of all who know him, David Levin, a mensch in the truest sense of that word, celebrates his sixtieth birthday.

2007: In Jerusalem, The Israeli Ballet, featuring Yevegenia Oberzatsuba and Vladimir Shaklerov, will perform the famous, romantic ballet, "Giselle," in the Sherover Theater at the Jerusalem Theater.

2008: Rosh Chodesh Tammuz (First Day)

2008: Birthday celebration of David Levin, a grand gabbai and, like his Biblical namesake, a sweet singer of song.

2008: A foundation created by Steven Spielberg is giving $1 million to the National Museum of American Jewish History. The money from the Righteous Persons Foundation will go toward a new, five-story museum building being built in Philadelphia. With the donation, officials say the museum's capital campaign has raised $111 million toward its $150 million goal. The new museum is set to open in 2010. Spielberg helped establish the Righteous Persons Foundation in 1994 after directing his Oscar-winning Holocaust film "Schindler's List."The museum was established in 1976 and is dedicated to telling the story of the American Jewish experience. It is constructing the new building in hopes of raising its profile and increasing the number of visitors

2008: Today, Saudi Arabia invited an Israeli rabbi to attend an interfaith conference to be held in Madrid. Rabbi David Rosen, president of the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations, is the only rabbi who lives in Israel who was invited by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and the World Muslim League to the conference that is slated for July 16 to 18. Other rabbis representing Orthodox, Conservative and Reform Judaism have also been invited. Rosen said that the conference was the Saudis' first initiative to reach out to other religions in this way.

2008: During the ceasefire with Hamas a Kassam rocket fired from Gaza struck near a kibbutz in the Sha'ar Hanegev Regional Council. No casualties or damage was reported.

2009: Bill Hurwitz, world traveling computer whiz pillar of the Cedar Rapids Jewish community, and a Zeda twice over celebrates the BIG Six-O.

2009: The family and friends celebrate the another natal day anniversary of David Levin whose accomplishments are so numerous that we would have to start a separate blog just to cover them. יום הולדת שמח