This Day, July 4, In Jewish History

July 4 In Jewish History

1187: Guy de Lusignan (King of Jerusalem) force-marched his troops through the dry, hot Galilee against the advice of Raymond III of Tripoli and others. At a site known as the Horns of Hittim near Lake Tiberius, the Moslems defeated him and his Crusader army. The Moslems were led by the legendary Saladin. This defeat lead to a string of Crusader defeats that culminated in the loss of Jerusalem in October. These losses would result in the Third Crusade, led by Richard the Lionhearted, which would fail to restore the gains of the Christians. There would be several more Crusades, none of which would prove any more successful. In the end, the Christians would be forced into retreat as Moslem rulers would extend their rule into the across a large swath of Europe. Those who contend that the today’s clashes between the West and certain groups of Moslems and Arabs are rooted in the creation of the state of Israel would do well to read some history. Obviously, today’s conflicts pre-date modern Zionism. Lest we lose track of the events of the eleventh and twelfth century, the Crusades were not a good period for the Jews

1453: Forty-one Jews were burned at the stake in Brelau, Germany. The remainder of the Jewish population was expelled

1632: Several secret Jews in Spain were sentenced at an auto-de-fe for holding Jewish services. They practiced in a house on a street known as Calle de las Infantas. The house was later destroyed. The non-Jewish owner of a building used as a shul was burned at the stake
1776(17th of Tammuz): Celebration of Independence Day. The Declaration of Independence in the United States of America provided the basis for religious tolerance in most other countries. During the Revolutionary war there were fewer than 2,500 Jews in total within the colonies. More than six hundred fought in the war including the great grandfather of Supreme Court Justice Cardozo. One company in South Carolina had so many Jews that it was called the Jews’ company. In 1776, July 4 corresponded to the 17th of Tammuz, which is a fast day on the Jewish calendar tied to the events leading up to the destruction of the Temple.

1788: The Jews of Philadelphia celebrate in a Federal Parade after hearing that the Constitution was adopted by a majority of the states. The newspaper read, "The rabbi of the Jews, locked in arms of two ministers of the gospel, was a most delightful sight."

1788: Benjamin Franklin was too sick and weak to get out of bed, but the Independence Day parade in Philadelphia marched right under his window. And, as Franklin himself had directed, ‘the clergy of different Christian denominations, with the rabbi of the Jews, walked arm in arm.’

1794: Catherine II of Russia restricted the area where Jews were permitted to trade.

1802: The U.S. Military Academy opens its doors at West Point, N.Y. According to Daniel Isaac Helmer, Cadet Sergeant, United States Military Academy--West Point and the Hillel president at the United States Military Academy the Jewish people have been associated with the Academy since its opening. The first graduating class consisted of two cadets one of whom was a Jew named Simon Levy. In the 1980s, the West Point Jewish Chapel, a beautiful $10 million facility, was opened. In 2002, in honor of 200 years of Jewish history at the Military Academy, the Jewish Chapel began building a commemorative wall to record and recognize all of the Jewish graduates of West Point. At that time there were about 70 Jews at the Military Academy out of a student population of approximately 4,000. An increasingly active Jewish population has begun to sponsor numerous Jewish activities. Jewish students from other schools have visited West Point for events including "Weekend of the Jewish Warrior" and a Hanukkah party. The Military Academy also has a West Point Jewish Chapel Choir, which has performed all over the East Coast.

1807: Birthdate of Giuseppe Garibaldi one of a triumvirate of Italian patriots who freed the peninsula from foreign rule and created the modern nation of Italy. Garibaldi was a revolutionary and a guerilla fighter in the true sense of the terms. His belief in equality extended to religion where he made no distinction between the rights of Christians and the rights of Jews. Numerous Jews served in his military unit known as “the Thousands” which liberated southern Italy and Sicily.

1845: The Egyptian Revival Hobart Synagogue was consecrated in Hobart a city on the Australian island state of Tasmania.

1873: Birthdate of dietician Frances Stern. The Frances Stern Nutrition Center a part of Tufts-New England Medical Center was named in her honor.

1883: Birthdate of Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist Rube Goldberg. Goldberg entertained several generations with his drawings of simple activities that were turned into multi-step complex functions. His name became synonymous with improvised temporary solutions to problems of major and minor magnitude.

1885: Birthdate of Louis B. Mayer. Born in Minsk, Russia, Mayer was one of a generation of early movie moguls. In his case, he was the motion-picture executive MGM (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

1902: Herzl had his first meeting with Nathaniel Mayer Rothschild in London.

1902: The Sultan asks Herzl top come to Constantinople immediately.

1902: Birthdate of mobster Meyer Lansky.

1905: Birthdate of author and literary critic Lionel Trilling.

1911: Birthdate of Mitch Miller. Born in Rochester NY, Miller’s greatest claims to fame are "The Yellow Rose of Texas" and his television show, "Sing Along With Mitch."

1913: Abe Attell the boxer known as “the Little Hebrew” accidentally hit the referee on the face during a win against Willie Beecher.

1918: At the Battle of Hamel on John Monash applied his doctrine of "peaceful penetration", and led Australian Divisions, along with a small detachment of US troops, to win a decisive victory for the Allies. A native of Australia, Monash was the son of Prussian born Jews and had risen to the rank of Major General in 1917.

1918: Birthdate of advice columnist Abigail Van Buren.

1918: Birthdate of advice columnist Ann Landers.

1918: Ottoman sultan Mehmed VI ascends to the throne. Mehmed had the unenviable challenge of salvaging what he could of Ottoman glory as World War I came to the end and the Allies were poised to turn most of the Ottoman Empire into European Colonies. Jews continued to play an active part in the governing of the Empire and the emerging Republic. These included the minister of telegraph Yusuf Franko Pasa and Professor Avram Galante who served as “translator of the foreign press news for the Ankara government.”

1926: Birthdate of Amos Elon.

1927: Birthdate of playwright Neil Simon. Some of his hits include Odd Couple, Plaza Suite and Biloxi Blues.

1929: When the “Ah-Say-Fah Ha’Nivcharim” (Assembly of the Chosen) resumes its meeting Jaobtinsky loses the vote to ignore the organization’s’ agenda and leads the eleven revisionist delegates out of the meeting after reading a speech attacking the Jewish Agency.

1931: According to a report by the Labor Department of the Jewish Agency made public today by the American Palestine Campaign, “few countries in the world afford women such equality of opportunity as is enjoyed by Jewish women in Palestine.” Out of work force of 23,830 most of which is located in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa and Petach Tikvah 18,067 are men and 5,754 are women. While the largest number of women works in agricultural endeavors, they are also represented in manufacturing, the professions and government work.

1934: An Inspectorate of Concentration Camps is established, headed by Theodor Eicke.

1934(21st of Tammuz, 5694): Zionist poet Chaim Nachman Bialik passed away. Born in Russia in 1873, Bialik had a traditional Talmudic education. However, at an early age he was attracted to Zionism and became a member of the Lovers of Zion. He fell under the influence of the author Achad Ha’am. His Hebrew poetry reflected the idea that Zionism was as much a cultural as it was a political movement. One of his famous early poems was "City of Slaughter" written in response to the pogrom at Kishnev. Bialik made Aliyah in 1924. Such was his influence that during his lifetime, he was called the "national poet," a title that has remained to this day. For those interested in reading his works in translation, consider looking at a copy of “Songs from Bialik: Selected Poems of Hayim Nachman Bialik.”

1934: Leo Szilard, the Hungarian born Jew who would take refuge in the United States and become part of the Manhattan Project, patents the chain-reaction design for the atomic bomb.

1941: The Nazis murdered scientists and writers in the captured city of Lvov.

1941: Lithuanian militiamen murdered 416 Jewish men, 47 Jewish women in Kovno.

1941: Two thousand Jews from Lutsk, Ukraine, are transported to the Lubard Fortress and killed.

1941: Fifty-four Jews are killed at Vilna, Lithuania.

1941: Germans order Lithuanian militiamen to murder 416 Jewish men and 47 Jewish women at the Seventh Fort

1941: Between July 4 and July 11 five thousand Jews are killed in Ternopol, Ukraine.

1944(13th of Tammuz, 5704): Corporal David H. Rubenstein was killed in action in France. He was the 19th Milford, Massachusetts man to lose his life in World War II. “Milford’s Fallen Family” of that war would come to total 55.

1944: One thousand Jewish women are sent from Auschwitz to Hamburg, Germany, to pull down the remains of structures damaged during Allied bombing raids.

1944: 250 inmates, most of them French Jews, from the Alderney camp on the Occupied Channel Islands are killed by fire from British warships while being transported to the mainland.

1944: Between July 4 and July 5 2565 Jews from Pápa, Hungary, are sent to Auschwitz just as the Hungarian government is poised to defy Germany and halt the deportation. Only 30 of Pápa's 2800 Jews will survive the war

1945: In Tripoli, Libya and in other Libyan towns, Muslims began anti- Jewish riots.
1946: A Pogrom took place in Kielce, Poland. The date is correct –1946. One year after the end of the World War II and the Holocaust and a Polish mob attacked a house in Kielce in Poland where almost all of the town's surviving Jews were living (200 of the original 25,000). Forty-two Jews were brutally murdered, another 50 injured. This was followed by a chaotic mass exodus of around 150,000 Jews from across Poland to DP camps in Germany

1946: Birthdate of financier Michael Milken. A wizard of Wall Street, Milken’s name became synonymous with greed and the Junk Bond Scandal. He eventually ended up going to prison for his part in the financial fraud that was rampant in the 1980’s.

1947: David Ben-Gurion appeared before the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP). During his testimony which covered the history of the Jewish people and the reasons for creating a Jewish state in Palestine Ben Gurion tells the UN officials that “What happened to our people in this war is merely a climax to the uninterrupted persecution to which we have been subjected for centuries by almost all the Christian and Moslem peoples in the world.’

1948: Pitcher Marv Rotblatt made his major league debut with the Chicago White Sox.

1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that an accidental blast in a quarry of Even V’Sid Company on Castel Hill killed eight workers and injured six others. The holiday-with-pay principle was legally established in Israel following the final reading of the Annual Leave Bill in the Knesset. Employees were entitled to a minimum of 14 days' paid vacation as of October 1, 1951. The employee must have worked 200 days out of year's contract, or must have worked 240 single days for the same employer in any one 12-month period to be entitled to such paid leave.

1959: Alaska becomes the 49th state to join the Union. Jewish involvement with Alaska dates back to January, 1868 when the Alaska Commercial Company was formed in by a group of Jewish businessman in San Francisco including Louis Sloss (President), Lewis Gerstle (Vice President), Simon Greenwald, William Kohl and A. Wasserman. Jews were included in those went “North to Alaska” during the Gold Rush of the 1890’s. There was actually an attempt made before World War II to turn the Alaska Territory into a refuge for Jews fleeing Hitler. The plan failed. Ernest Gruening, a Jew from New York, was one of Alaska’s most prominent early political leaders. A supporter of statehood, he served as territorial governor and then was elected as one of the state’s first two United States Senators. Gruening joined Wayne Morris as one of only two Senators to vote against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. The vote cost him his seat. But it made him one of the first to see the folly of the Viet Nam War.

1967: In the General Assembly of the UN Chile gave its full support to the resolution of the Latin American Bloc in the aftermath of the Six-Day War.

1970: American painter Barnett Newman passed away.

1975: In Jerusalem’s Zion Square, members of the PLO detonate a bomb hidden in a refrigerator which killed fourteen and wounded seventy. Victims included Arabs as well as Jews.

1976: The Jerusalem Post reported that there was extensive violence in the West Bank towns in protest against the fatal shooting of an 18-year-old Arab youth during clashes with security forces during the weekend. The giant American Bicentennial National Park in the Jerusalem hills was officially opened to the public.

1976: Antoni Słonimski, Polish poet and author, passed away. Slonimski spent the war years in exile in Britain. He returned to Poland in 1951 where he was a staunch anti-Stalinist.

1976: The Entebbe Rescue – 256 hostages from an Air France plane were held prisoners by Palestinian terrorists and Ugandan soldiers. After 8 days they were rescued by Israeli commandos in a brilliant ruse under the command of Yonatan Netanyahu who was shot in the back during the rescue. Netanyahu was the one of four Israeli soldier killed in the rescue mission. His brother parlayed the death into a political career that took him to the top of the Israeli political ladder. The United Nations condemned Israel for violating Ugandan Sovereignty.
1986: Russian born, American mathematician Oscar Zariski passed away.

1987: Nazi Klaus Barbie, "Butcher of Lyon" is convicted by a French court.

1999: The New York Times reviews books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “The Story Begins: Essays on Literature” y Amos Oz and “The Elusive Embrace: Desire and the Riddle of Identity” by Daniel Mendelsohn.

2002: Jewish National Fund officials announced that retired Tel Aviv District Court Judge Arye Segelson will head the organization's investigation into allegations of misconduct in JNF's 'Plant a Tree With Your Own Hands' program for tourists. The announcement is the latest in a series of JNF efforts to address an article last week in Ma'ariv claiming that saplings planted by tourists at a JNF site near Hadassah-University Hospital, Ein Kerem, had been uprooted to allow other tourists to plant in the same spot the next day."

2002 (24th of Tammuz, 5762): A gunman opened fire at Israel's El Al airline ticket counter at Los Angeles International Airport; three people were killed, including the gunman

2004: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “Conspirators” by Michael André Bernstein and ‘Politics: Observations & Arguments'' by Hendrik Hertzberg

2004: Victor Kreiderman, 49, was killed by terrorists in Israel.

2007: In an interview broadcast on Channel 10 Abu Mutfana - a leader in the Army of Islam – said that the kidnappers of Cpl. Gilad Schalit have transferred him to the custody of Hamas

2008: Rosh Chodesh Tammuz (Second Day); First day of Tammuz, 5768

2008: As part of its 4th of July cookout themed advertising, Wal Mart touts the availability of “100% all kosher Hebrew National Hot Dogs.” The Red, White and Blue meets OU!

2008: Following two days each punctuated by a rocket attack on Israel, Hamas today announced that it was suspending all negotiations with Israel over the release of captured IDF soldier Gilad Schalit. The deputy head of Hamas's political bureau, Mussa Abu Marzuk, said that the talks were being frozen because Israel was not displaying commitment to the truce agreement with his organization in Gaza.

2008: Despite the seemingly endless rounds of adversity that would break the spirits of lesser people, the Jews of Tel Aviv showed their true mettle by hosing the fourth annual mass water fight in Rabin Square which drew hundreds of children, teens and adults. Participants sprayed each other with water from various water guns, buckets, bottles and bags. The "weapons" were filled up with water from the main fountain in the square, near the municipality building. Friday's water fight was the fourth such annual event organized by a group of youths called "Farsh." According to the group, "the aim of the event is for people to have fun. We want to make people smile and feel happy, and get wet at the same time."

2008: The Washington Post features a review of “Undiscovered” by Jewish actress, Debra Winger

2009: In Alexandria, VA, Jews of the Old Dominion celebrate Independence Day with a "Red, White & Blue Tot Shabbat" in the chapel at Beth El Hebrew Congregation.

2009: There is no Independence Day Celebration at the U.S. Embassy in Israel on July 4 because the official celebration took place on July 1. The celebration included remarks by the Ambassador on the 233rd anniversary of U.S. Independence, Shiri Maimon singing the “Star-Spangled Banner” and “Hatikva” and fireworks lighting up the night sky above the cliffs of the Mediterranean.