This Day, July 9, In Jewish History

July 9 In Jewish History

0118 - Hadrian, Rome's new emperor, made his entry into the Imperial City. Regardless of how history remembers him, for Jews, Hadrian is the Emperor who helped to start the Third Rebellion against Rome. In this case it was the lead by Bar Kochba and supported by Rabbi Akiva. It lasted from 132 until 135. It was the last uprising against Rome and really marked the beginning of the end of a vital Jewish community in Palestine.

507: At Daphne (near Antioch in Syria), a sporting event was held in the form of a chariot race between two parties, the Greens and the Whites. For no apparent reason, the supporters of the greens attacked the local synagogue killing those Jews who were inside.

1391: Violence in Valencia, Spain that had begun a month earlier under the direction Ferrand Martinez continued unabated. Ferrand Martinez was the Archdeacon of Ecija in the fourteenth century, and one of the most inveterate enemies of the Jewish people. Among Christians he was highly respected for his piety and philanthropy. In his sermons and public discourses he continually fanned the hatred of the Christian population against the Jews, to whom he ascribed all sorts of vices. As vicar-general of Archbishop Barroso of Seville he arrogated to himself the right of jurisdiction over the Jews in his diocese, injuring them wherever he could, and demanding that the magistrates of Alcalá de Guadeyra, Ecija, and other places no longer suffer the Jews among them. The community of Valencia was destroyed and 250 Jews massacred. Many others including the king's physician converted to Christianity while still others found refuge in the houses of their Christian neighbors.

1391: A rabbi's personal letter written in Saragossa, Spain on this date is one of the few firsthand accounts of the total chaos in Spain: "If I were to tell you here all the numerous sufferings we have endured you would be dumbfounded at the thought of them…On the day of the New Moon of the fateful month Tammuz in the year 5151, the Lord bent the bow of the enemies against the populous community of Seville where there were between 6,000-7,000 heads of families, and they destroyed the gates by fire and killed in that very place a great number of people; the majority, however, changed their faith.

1733: Abigaill Levy Franks, the most noted of American Jewish colonial letter writers, wrote her son Naphtali, admonishing him to eat nothing but "bread & butter" wherever food preparation was "not done after our Strict Juidacall [kosher] method."

1797: Edmund Burke, British philosopher and statesman, passed away. Burke is the author of the quote “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” This quote has often been used by commentators and historians in attempts to explain the Holocaust.

1816: Argentina declares independence from Spain. The first Jews probably came to Argentina as conversos following the Spanish Inquisition. Bernardino Rivadavia, Argentina’s first president gave support to policies that promoted freedom of immigration and respect for human rights, including the abolishing of the Inquisition. These changes in the social and political climate paved the way for a new wave of Jewish immigration.

1846: The chief rabbis of Baghdad announced a curse (Herem) on the Christian missionaries who had come to convert the Jews in their community.

1850: President Zachary Taylor dies and Millard Fillmore becomes the 13th President of the United States. Millard Fillmore is one the lesser known U.S. Presidents. But he played a major role in furthering the acceptance of Jews as full citizens of the United States. In 1851, the United States Senate considered a treaty with Switzerland. The treaty included a clause that would the governments of the individual Swiss Cantons to treat U.S. citizens in the same way they treated their own citizens. Some of the cantons had laws that discriminated against Jews. Ratification of the treaty would have meant that American citizens could be treated differently based on their religion. Fillmore declared that part of the treat to be “a decisive objection. In leading the successful opposition to the treaty Fillmore declared that “neither by law, nor by treaty, nor by any other official proceeding is it competent for the Government of the United States to establish any distinction between its citizens founded on differences in religious beliefs.”

1858: Birthdate of Franz Boas, “the Father of American Anthropology.”

1900: Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom gives royal assent to an act creating the Commonwealth of Australia thus uniting separate colonies on the continent under one federal government. The first Jews arrived in Australia, in 1788 when European convicts settled in what was to become the city of Sydney. Jews played an active role in the growth and development of the various colonies that would make up the CommonHealth of Australia. Members of Montefiore family, which was part of the clan headed by Sir Moses Montefiore the famed philanthropist and businessman, developed several commercial ventures and held numerous public positions during this time. The township of Montefiore stands as a testament to the family’s active role in the development of Australia and its Jewish community.

1901: According to reports published in the New York Times, Montefiore Isaacs, the nephew of the late Sir Moses Montefiore, is one of the most popular bachelors who belong to the posh Metropolitan Club. Among other things, Montefiore is famous for his skills as a magician; skills which he has used in “thousands of performances” given for a wide variety of charities. He is also a well regarded for his knowledge of Shakespeare and his collection of very rare books.

1902: Another interview with Lord Rothschild takes place and Herzl submits the details of Colonization Company for the development of Sinai, El Arish and Cyprus. Rothschild promises to discuss the plan with the British Minister for the Colonies, Joseph Chamberlain.

1909: The Jews of Persia take refuge inside the Turkish consulate during a revolt. They appeal to the Hahambashi of Turkey to help them become Ottoman subjects.

1915: Birthdate of American composer David Leo Diamond. For more than five decades David Leo Diamond (b. 1915) has figured prominently among mainstream American composers. Born in Rochester, New York, to Yiddish-speaking immigrant parents from the area around Lemberg, Galicia (now Ukraine), he received a typical Jewish religious education in the local afternoon Hebrew school. At the age of seven he displayed musical gifts on the violin, which he learned to play initially on his own, and he began composing small pieces while still a child—also without formal instruction. There followed violin lessons at public grammar school and, briefly, while his family was in temporary residence in Cleveland, Ohio, during the 1920s, some studies at the Cleveland Institute of Music. Later, he was awarded a scholarship at the Eastman School of Music, in Rochester, where he studied with Bernard Rogers. The premiere of his first orchestral work, a one-movement symphony, was conducted by Eastman's resident composer and composition department chairman, Howard Hanson. As a student in Rochester, Diamond was fascinated by the cantorial art he heard in the local synagogue and at concerts given by visiting cantorial celebrities—especially, as he could still recall more than seven decades later, the famous Yossele Rosenblatt (1882–1933). Diamond also developed an intellectual interest in Jewish music history, acquainting himself with much of the available literature. During his studies with Rogers, he began writing short pieces that incorporated Jewish themes and modes. Before completing the course at Eastman, however, Diamond left for New York City, where he became a pupil of Roger Sessions and studied at the Dalcroze Institute. Sessions, like Rogers, had been a student of Ernest Bloch, and Diamond always felt that this provided him an indirect yet significant influence of that acknowledged 20th-century master. Shortly after arriving in New York, Diamond introduced himself to Lazare Saminsky (1882–1959), then the music director at Temple Emanu-El, the city's flagship Reform congregation. Saminsky, an established and respected composer in the general music world who was also one of the major personalities on the American Jewish music scene, took an interest in the young composer's gifts and became something of a patron. He invited Diamond to write various liturgical settings for Emanu-El's services, and Diamond continued on his own to add to that repertoire. Saminsky's encouragement proved significant on several levels: "It was really Mr. Saminsky who got me writing more and more," Diamond later acknowledged. In those initial New York years Saminsky also introduced him to the highly regarded and well-established American born composer, the first composition professor at The Juilliard School, Frederick Jacobi (1891–1952), who, like Diamond, included Judaically related works among his overall opera. Jacobi quietly organized some private financial assistance for Diamond to help him continue his studies and pursue his artistic goals.

1915: Having just returned from a tour of the Western Front, Chief Rabbi Joseph Herman Hertz and Rabbi Michael Adler, Senior Chaplin for the Jewish soldiers serving in the field, reported on the conditions of the Jewish troops serving on activity duty. Based on published figures, of the 200,000 Jews living in the British Isles, 20,000 are serving on active duty and another 5,000 are in training units. Actually, there may be more Jews serving than this tally indicates. When many Jews were enlisting in the early days of the war, they neglected to indicate their religion, so they were automatically labeled as Church of England. The two clerics quoted Field Marshall Sir John French as paying the highest possible tribute to the bravery and patriotism of the Jewish soldiers serving in his command. The enthusiastic response of the Jews is attributed to the treatment they have received as citizens of the British Empire. Rabbis of fighting age are serving in the ranks and the sons of Rabbis who are of military age have almost all enlisted. The sons of the rich and powerful are well-represented as can be seen by the names of Montefiore, Rothschild and Henriques. In addition to the males serving at the front, hundreds of Jewish women are serving as Red Cross nurses both on the Western Front and on the home front.

1926: Birthdate of Dr. Mathilde Krim, scientist and AIDS activist. She recognized soon after the first cases of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) were reported in 1981 that this new disease raised grave scientific and medical questions and that it might have important socio-political consequences. She dedicated herself to increasing the public's awareness of AIDS and to a better understanding of its cause, its modes of transmission, and its epidemiologic pattern. . It was during her doctoral studies that Krim converted to Judaism, inspired in part by learning the truth about the Holocaust and in part by her association with Jews from Israel (then Palestine) who were studying at the University. In 1953, Krim moved with her husband and daughter to Israel, where she found a position at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot. At Weizmann, she contributed to studies that laid the foundation for amniocentesis, became one of the first experts in culturing cells, and studied the viruses thought to cause some forms of cancer. After moving to New York 1958, she joined the research faculty at Cornell Medical College and later at Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research. For many years, she was deeply involved in the study of interferons, natural substances that were considered promising for the treatment of cancer. Just as the study of interferons was falling out of favor, AIDS was becoming a major public health concern. Krim left full-time research and became involved in AIDS treatment and activism. In 1985, she founded the AIDS Medical Foundation (AMF), the first private organization concerned with fostering and supporting AIDS research. In August, 2000 she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States.

1929: Birthdate of King Hassan II of Morocco. King Hassan served as a “back channel” during negotiations between Israeli and Arab officials. He played a critical, if somewhat still undefined role, in the Camp David Negotiations that led to the peace agreement between Israel and Egypt in 1973.

1936: The Palestine Post reported from London that Mr. Ormsby-Gore, the Colonial Secretary, admitted in the House of Commons that since the Palestine Government's expenditure on Moslem Religious Courts exceeded income, it was inevitable that the Jewish taxpayer had contributed approximately £9,000 to the maintenance of the Moslem Supreme Council, while Jewish religious courts and the Chief Rabbinate received no support from the government. More British troops were transferred from Egypt to Palestine. Ha'aretz and Haboker dailies were suspended for five days for the "publication of false news, likely to create alarm and despondency" (the comment on the failure of the British troops and of the Palestine Police to deal effectively with Arab disturbances).

1938: Famed jurist Benjamin Cardozo passed away. Cardozo was part of Sephardic family that had deep roots in the American experience. One of his ancestors fought in the American Revolution. Born in 1870 in New York, Cardozo had a long, distinguished career as an author on legal matters and a jurist before being named an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court by Herbert Hoover in 1932. Cardozo was the second Jew to reach this height; the first being Louis D. Brandies. At one time, Cardozo was ranked as one of the "ten most foremost judges in American Judicial history." Cardozo was an active member of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue in New York. During the 1930’s, with the rise of European anti-Semitism and Hitler, Cardozo became a public supporter of Palestine as a homeland for the Jews.

1938: Two seventeen year old Jewish hikers were stabbed and seriously wounded this morning “while passing through an Arab village, a mile from Tel Aviv on the main Jaffa-Jerusalem road. They were stripped and left by the roadside until found by a passing motorist.” The attack marked the end of bloody week in which Arab attackers had killed 12 Jews and wounded another 24.

1941: Hungary invaded the eastern Ukraine. Hungary was an ally of Nazi Germany during the war. Hungary's Jews suffered at the hand of homegrown anti-Semites. But eventually Eichman arrived and the full weight of the Final Solution fell, first in the countryside in places like Sighet and later in the big cities, most notably Budapest.

1942: Anne Frank’s family went into hiding in an attic above her father’s office in an Amsterdam warehouse.

1942: Jewish partisan Vitka Kempner returns to the Vilna Ghetto, having successfully planted a land mine and blown up the engine and ammunition cars of a German military train.

1944: Responding to Allied pressure, especially threats to hold Hungary’s leadership responsible for the shipment of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz prompted Admiral Miklos Horthy, Hungary's regent, to stop deportations

1944: Raoul Wallenberg arrived in Budapest where he presented visas for 630 Hungarian Jews. Raoul Wallenberg was one of the greatest human beings in history. This Swedish national risked his life over and over again to save the Jews of Hungary. With only Chutzpah, Courage and a fair stash of cash, this man faced down the Nazi murder machine and made it give up some of its Jews. He is living proof that one person can make a difference. I have never been able to find any satisfactory reason why he risked his life for this thankless undertaking. In the end, the Soviets entered Budapest and took him away to a fate that is still unknown. That the world remained silent while Six Million perished is an oft-told tale. That the world (specifically the governments of the Allied powers) did not push for this man’s release is a permanent stain.

1945: Birthdate of Rabbi Gene Levy, in the truest sense of the term, spiritual leader of Temple B'Nai Israel in Little Rock, AR.

1948: The four week cease fire between the Israelis and the invading Arab armies was set to end. The Arabs rejected attempts by Count Bernadotte, the U.N. envoy, to extend the cease fire for another ten days.

1951: The Jerusalem Post reported that Jerusalem was assured of a regular supply of ice for domestic purposes from outside of the city and that the government granted a subsidy, due to the cost of the transport of ice from the coast. The Jerusalem Program for Zionism, replacing the Basel Program drawn up at the First Zionist Congress in 1897, was drawn up for the 23rd Zionist Congress to be held in Jerusalem on August 14.

1955: The Russell-Einstein Manifesto was released by Bertrand Russell in London. The manifesto was an attempt by the “peace advocates” to deescalate the Cold War by calling attention to the dangers of nuclear weapons. It contained a call for an international conference to deal with issues of nuclear disarmament. The Einstein in the manifesto was Albert Einstein who died shortly after the manifesto was issued.

1961: Israel officially recognized South Korea

1967: “Mezzo-soprano Jennie Tourel joined Leonard Bernstein for a concert on Jerusalem's Mount Scopus to celebrate the end of the Six-Day War. It was a moment that brought together several of the themes of her life: music, dedication to Israel, and work with prominent composers and conductors. Born in Vitebsk, Belorussia (now Belarus) in 1900, she trained as a singer in Paris, where she debuted at the Opéra Comique in 1933. She won acclaim for her performance of the title role in Bizet's Carmen. For nearly a decade, she was the star of the Opéra Comique, singing the roles of Charlotte in Massenet's Werther and the title role in Thomas's Mignon. Fleeing Paris just a week before the Nazi invasion, Tourel made her way to New York via Portugal, Cuba, and Canada. Though at first she had trouble finding work, she eventually impressed a musical agent who arranged an audition with the conductor Arturo Toscanini. Toscanini, in turn, hired her to sing with the New York Philharmonic, and she soon appeared with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Philadelphia Orchestra as well. Later, Leonard Bernstein wrote the Jeremiah Symphony especially for her voice, and Tourel performed it all over the world. In her late forties, Tourel became well-known as a song recitalist. Though she had received critical and popular acclaim for her work in opera, her performances of French, German, and Russian songs, including Ravel's Shéhérazade, Mussorgsky's Songs and Dances of Death, and works by Schubert and Schumann, gained her an even wider circle of fans. At an age when many singers retire, Tourel continued to give acclaimed performances to eager audiences. She continued to perform until past the age of seventy. In addition to performing all over the world, Tourel taught at New York's Juilliard School, and annually at the Samuel Rubin Academy of Music in Jerusalem. In 1949, she became one of the first internationally-known artists to visit the infant Jewish state. Following that first visit, she remained involved in the musical life of Israel, with frequent visits and master classes. Tourel died on November 23, 1973. Leonard Bernstein paid her tribute in a eulogy at her funeral, saying, ‘when Jennie opened her mouth, God spoke.’”

1969: Egyptian commandos raid an Israeli tank depot, killing 8, wounding nine and taking one prisoner.

1973: The Ninth Maccabiah games open in Tel Aviv, Israel.

1976: The Jerusalem Post reported on the tragic fate of Dora Bloch, who held both British and Israeli citizenship, and who remained at a Ugandan hospital after all the other hijacked Israelis were freed by the Entebbe IDF operation. She ominously disappeared from the hospital after having been visited by a British official, one day after the Israeli raid, and was suspected of having been later murdered. Israel cited this case at the UN as an apparent example of Ugandan complicity in the high jacking of the Air France plane.

1979: A car bomb destroys a Renault owned by famed "Nazi hunters" Serge and Beate Klarsfeld at their home in France. A note purportedly from ODESSA claims responsibility.

2000: The New York Times features reviews books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including “Oberammergau: The Troubling Story of the World's Most Famous Passion Play” by James Shapiro and “Freud’s Megalomania” by Israel Rosenfield.

2006: Alan Senitt, a 27 year old political activist from north London who was being prepped for a glittering career, was stabbed to death in Georgetown. Police said he was trying to protect his female companion when they were targeted by armed robbers as they walked home in Washington DC. The former chairman of the Union of Jewish Students (UJS), Senitt had moved to the US to work on Democrat Mark Warner's presidential campaign.

2007: “Spielberg on Spielberg’ – a 90 minute documentary about the celebrated film maker – appears on TCM, The Turner Classic Movies Channel.

2007: In a story entitled “Bishop mourns Latin decree, Jews ask for clarity,” The Washington Post reported that “a decree by Pope Benedict allowing priests to say the old Latin Mass more frequently has sparked criticism within both Catholic and Jewish ranks… Some Jewish leaders have sharply criticized the decree, which revives a passage from the old Latin prayer book for Good Friday calling for Jews to be converted. Others, however, took a more measured tone and called for clarification. “I think there are those who have interpreted it in an extremely alarmist fashion,’ Rabbi David Rosen of the American Jewish Committee (AJC) told Reuters.’ That doesn't mean that there aren't things that need clarification but there is no question of Pope Benedict's commitment to respectful relations with the Jewish people.’ The AJC's Rome representative, Lisa Palmieri-Billig, said the text of the decree was ambiguous on the issue. Church officials however had no doubt the prayer could now be said in certain circumstances, even if its use would probably be rare. ‘I find it difficult to believe that the Pope would permit the Good Friday prayer, it could be a communication mistake,’ Palmieri-Billig said. ‘Conversion is a very sensitive issue for Jews and if the prayer is allowed, it would be a step backwards for dialogue.’ French Cardinal Jean-Pierre Ricard, who warned last year against meeting traditionalists' demands for the Latin mass, said on Saturday the prayer could be changed if it caused difficulties with Jews.”

2007: In a night time gathering, some 30,000 people including about 5,000 Negev residents attended the "We are all Sderot" solidarity concert at Rabin Square in Tel Aviv, to show support for the residents of Sderot and other communities bordering the Gaza Strip, who live under the constant threat of Qassam rocket fire.

2007: French-Israeli writer Andre Chouraqui, known for his French-language translation of the Bible and his work in government in Israel, passed away at the age of 89 at his home in Jerusalem.

2008: In Washington, D.C., Robert Wexler a six-term U.S. congressman from Florida, discusses and signs Fire-Breathing Liberal: How I Learned to Survive (and Thrive) in the Contact Sport of Congress (written with David Fisher) at Borders Books.

2008: Ted Koppel’s four-part Discovery Channel series, “The People’s Republic of Capitalism,” which illustrates how dramatically China has changed begins with three other installments at the same time on successive nights.

2008: Professor Sarah Stroumsa of the departments of Arabic Language and Literature and of Jewish Thought has been elected by the Senate of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem as the institution’s new rector.

2009: The Jerusalem Film Festival features a screening of “A Matter of Size,” a film about a group of disillusioned dieting Jews from Ramla who, through the efforts of one of their cohorts named Herzl and his Japanese employer, learn about the wonders of Sumo wrestling which liberates them physically and spiritually.

2009: 17th of Tammuz