March 31 In Jewish History
1146: Bernard of Clairvaux preaches his famous sermon in a field at Vézelay, urging the necessity of a Second Crusade. Louis VII is present, and joins the Crusade. Unlike the First Crusade, the Second Crusade is led by two monarchs - Louis VII of France and Conrad III of Germany. The “German connection” led to more suffering for the Jews of the Rhineland. Thanks to the incitement by one monk, the town of Wurburg was demolished during the massacres of Jews living along the Rhine River. As had happened during the First Crusade, the Christian warriors decided to slaughter the Infidels in their midst as they moved to free the Holy Land from the Infidels. The growing class of Christian merchants benefited from the violence since the destruction of the Jewish community destroyed their Jewish competitors. All Christians did not engage in this anti-Semitic behavior. Bernard himself tried to protect the Jewish population. His message of Crusade was heard. His message concerning the Jews was not.
1283: Massacre of the Jews of Mayence in Germany.
1381: During a popular uprising in France known as The Revolt of the Maillotins, Jews in France were murdered and their property plundered for next three or four days. The regent exercising royal power for the youthful Charles VI was unable to save the Jews or gain them indemnification for their loss.
1492: Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon issued the Alhambra Decree or Edict of Expulsion, ordering her 150,000 Jewish subjects to convert to Christianity or face expulsion. Jews, unlike conversos and Marranos, were not subject to the Inquisition. So, the Church leveled a ritual murder accusation against them in Granada and was thus was able to call for the expulsion of both Jews as well as Marranos from Spain. The Marranos themselves were accused of complicity in the case so both groups were ordered to leave within four months. Torquemada, the director of the Inquisition (and incidentally of Jewish descent), defended this against Don Isaac Abarbanel. The edict was passed, and over fifteen thousand Jews had to flee - some to the Province of Aragon and others, like Abarbanel, to Naples. Still others found temporary sanctuary in Portugal.
1596: Birthdate of Rene Descartes, the French mathematician and philosopher who was one of the two main sources from which Spinoza derived his view of the world.
1648: In an attempt to explain the drop off in the production of vanilla, Commander Beekman of Essequibo and Pomeroon wrote the following letter to his superiors in Amsterdam today.
“The Jew Salomon de la Roche having died some 8 to 9 months ago, the trade in vanilla has come to an end, since no one here knows how to prepare it, so as to develop proper aroma and keep it from spoiling. I have not heard of any this whole year. Little is found here. Most of it is found in Pomeroon, whither this Jew frequently traveled, and he sometimes used to make me a present of a little. In navigating along the river, I have sometimes seen some on the trees and picked with my own hands, and it was prepared by the Jew....I shall do my best to obtain for the company as much as shall be feasible, but I am afraid it will spoil, since I do not know how to prepare it.” [The letter is illustrative of the vital role Jews played in the production of vanilla.]
1745: The Jews of Prague were exiled.
1783: Emperor Joseph II allowed the Jews to live in so-called "Royal Cities" including Pest, which would later be the “Pest” in Budapest. By 1787 81,000 Jews would be living in Hungary. The Hungarian Jewish community would grow large and prosper but would all but perish in the Holocaust. Tragically, it was the Holocaust that produced Hungary’s most famous Jew, Elie Weisel.
1799(24th of Adar II, 5559): Lorenzo Bertran was subjected to an auto-da-fe ("act of faith," in reality the public ceremony when the sentence of the Inquisition was read and carried out) in Seville. Supposedly he was the last person to be punished for attempting to lead others to Judaism in Spain. It was not the end of the auto-da-fe; a ceremony that was reported to have taken place in Mexico in isolated instance in the early 19th century.
1810: Hayyim Selig Slonimski was born in Byelostok, Russian Empire (modern Białystok, Poland) was born today.
1821: Abolition of the Portuguese Inquisition. The Inquisition was established in 1531 meaning it lasted for 290 years.
1851: Birthdate of Sir Francis Henry Dillon Bell, the first native of New Zealand and the first Jew to serve as Prime Minister of the land of the Kiwis.
1856: The Jews of Belarus or White Russia were denied the right to wear any distinctive garments that would mark them as different from the rest of the citizenry. At the time White Russia was part of the Czar's Russia with Poland and Lithuania to the west, Ukraine to the South, and Russia to the east. Minsk, home to a large Jewish population is today the capital of an independent Belarus.
1863: An article entitled “The Will of Commodore Levy--The Bequest of the Monticello Estate to the People of the United States Void” published today described the litigation surrounding attempts to “break” the late Jewish naval hero’s will. “This was an action to obtain a construction of the will of Commodore Levy, in respect to the bequest of the People of the United States of a farm owned by him, and 200 acres adjoining it, at Monticello, Virginia, and also in respect to a bequest of $1,000 to the Jews' Hospital in this City. The Court now rendered the following judgment, declaring the devise and bequest of the Monticello estate, and the 200 acres adjoining, to the people of the United States void, and that said portions of the estate descended to and vested in the heirs at law and next of kin of the testator; also that the Jews' Hospital of New-York are entitled to have their bequest." Such was the endorsement upon the papers.”
1865: The new Synagogue of the Congregation Shaar Hashomayim, (Gate of Heaven), in Rivington-street, between Ludlow and Orchard, was formally consecrated this afternoon.
1867: An article published today entitled “The Insurance Companies and ‘Jew Risks’” reported on a meeting where members of the community including the mayor or Richmond expressed their anger over the decision of insurance companies to no longer accept ‘Jew Risks.’ The mayor, who had been in the insurance business for years told the crowd that he had numerous dealings with Jews over the years and found them to be honest. No reason was given for the decision of the insurance companies.
1880: Alexander II of Russia was assassinated, and with him his half-hearted liberalism. He was succeeded by Alexander III who, devoted to medievalism, urged the return to Russian civilization. The most influential person during his reign was Pobestonostov, his financier and procurator of the Holy Synod, who earned the title "the Second Torquemada."
1885: The New York Times reported that “the Jewish festival of Pesach, or Passover, instituted to commemorate the exodus of the children of Israel from Egypt, commenced last evening and its celebration will be continued among the orthodox Hebrews throughout the world for the next eight days. This festival is also known as Hag Ha’Matzos, or the fest of the unleavened bread.”
1889: The Eiffel Tower was inaugurated. One of Chagall’s most famous paintings was “Eiffel Tower, Serenade.”
1890: The New York Times reported that “the diary of Sir Moses Montefiore and Lady Montefiore which the Belforde Clark Company" has published "in two octave volumes covers the period from 1812 to 1883. The papers of Sir Moses were left to his Secretary, Dr. Lowe, for arrangement and publication, but Dr. Lowe died upon completing the work and son of Sir Moses, now a resident of this country, then carried it forward.”
1893: A group of Boston Jews belonging to Adath Israel petitioned Judge Ely for the return of wine and brandy which the Judge had previously ruled had been wrongfully seized by the police. Passover begins tonight and the Jews need the wine for the Seder. While the Judge said he would do all that he could to help with the return, “he could find no authority to order the wines returned before May.”
1893: The New York Times reported that “the celebration of the feast of Pesach, or the Passover, will be begun by Jewish people throughout the world at sunset this evening and will be continued for eight days by the Orthodox Jews. Those who have accepted the reform ritual, among them a large number of the Jews in America, continue the celebration only seven days, the first and last days of that period being alone regarded as of special significance and celebrated as holy days.”
1899: Rumania barred Jews from professional and agricultural schools
1904: The New York Times reported that “at sunset last evening the Jewish people throughout the world began the celebration of the festival of "Pesach," or the Passover. This festival was instituted to celebrate the deliverance of the children of Israel from their long bondage in the land of Egypt, and, lasting for eight days, is a season of peculiar observances.”
1912: The New York Times reported that “Interesting archaeological discoveries, showing the observance as far back as 430 B.C. of the Jewish Passover, the festival commemorative of the exodus from Egypt, which Jews throughout the world will celebrate for a week beginning the evening of April 1, are described in the current issue of The American Hebrew.”
1912: The Patriotic League of America, an organization dedicated to helping Jewish young men pursue careers in the army and navy has invited 200 service men stationed in and near New York City to be its guests at Seders for the first two nights of Passover at the Tuxedo Hall in New York. Adjutant General A.F. Ladd of the War Department has responded positively to the League’s lobbying efforts on behalf of the Jewish servicemen and has directed commanding officers to allow the Jewish soldiers to have furloughs so that they can observe the holiday which begins on the evening of April 1.
1912: The New York Times reported that Leopold Plaut, President of the United Hebrew Charities has issued a circular asking that the families of deceased Jews donate the money normally spent for flowers at a funeral to his organization. The organization will send acknowledgements to the donor and the family of the deceased, acknowledging the gift without mentioning the amount.
1921: Albert Einstein lectured in New York on his new theory of relativity.
1922: Birthdate of Lionel Davidson
1925: The town of Afula was founded in the Jezreel Valley. Afula means The Town of Jezreel and it was started with the support of the American Zion Commonwealth. Unfortunately, the town never lived up to the original expectations with the settlers in the Jezreel Valley preferring to go to Haifa for rest and relaxation. The hospital at Afula did prove to be of lasting importance. Afula is a friendly crossroads town with numerous small stores selling what the locals claim to be the "best pistachio nuts in the world."
1926: Jacob Adler, who had suffered a stroke in 1920 and had been in declining health ever since, suddenly collapsed today.
1928: Real birthdate of Jacob Lateiner, Cuban born American pianist. His father would not get around to registering his birth until May of 1928 which has led to confusion about when he was really born.
1929: Birthdate of Ilya Piastetski-Shapiro, famed math theorist who clashed with Soviet authorities. He passed away at the age of 79 on February 21, 2009 in Tel Aviv.
1932: At Tel Aviv, on the final day of the first Jewish Olympics, Americans captured the lion’s share of the victories Sybil Koff of New York “won the women’s triathlon and the high jumps. Gus Hemann … won the men’s 100 meter dash…Leslie Flaksman won the 500 meter race…and Harry Schneider won the javelin, shooting, discus-throwing and men’s triathlon contests.” Victories by European teams included an Austrian first place finish in the 400 – meter race and first place finish by the a team from the Middlesex Regiment in the relay race that earned it the High Commissioner’s Cup.
1935: Hebrew novelist Samuel I. Agnon was awarded the Bialik Prize in Hebrew Literature. The Bialik Prize was established in memory of the dean of Hebrew literature, Chaim Nachman Bialik and is considered the equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize. S.I. Agnon is considered by sum to be a worthy candidate for the Nobel Prize.
1935: The Italian liner Roma arrived in Haifa carrying 1,650 passengers, which is believed to the largest number of people ever brought to Palestine on one ship. Most of the passengers are believed to be headed for Tel Aviv, site of the upcoming Maccabiad.
1935: The Palestine police (an instrument of the British mandatory government) “issued an order today prohibiting a parade of athletes participating in the Maccabiah, the world Jewish athletic games.” The parade was scheduled to be held in Tel Aviv on April 1. The police reportedly were responding to threats of violent outbursts by the Arab populace.
1936: Birthdate of poet, playwright and novelist Marge Piercy. Piercy grew up in the racially divided city of Detroit, where her Jewishness made her the target of bullies. One grandparent was Yiddish-speaking and Orthodox; another was a union organizer murdered for his activism. These influences, together with grief over relatives murdered in the Holocaust, aroused Piercy's political activism. They also strengthened her commitment to remaining involved with issues and matters of Jewish importance.
1937: The Palestine Post reported from Glasgow that the International Labor Party conference deplored the bloodshed in Palestine by terrorists and called upon Jews to resist all attempts by Arab reactionary elements, sometimes supported by the British authorities. The first regulation made by the High Commissioner under the New Palestine Orders allowed the authorities to seize and retain accommodation and food, as they thought fit for the execution of their duty.
1938: According to reports published in the New York Times, Dr. Sigmund Freud cannot leave Vienna and move to the Hague because “the authoritieis have refused to give him a passport.” In other words, the Nazi Austrian government has made the prominent Jewish psychiatrist a prisoner.
1940: Birthdate of Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank.
1941: With encouragement from the Axis powers (Italy and Germany) Rashid Ali al-Gaylani led an anti-British revolt in Iraq much to the detriment of the Jewish population.
1942: In the western Ukraine, the Gestapo organized the first deportation of 5,000 Jews from Stanislawow ghetto to Belzac death camp.It was one of the biggest transports to Belzec in the first phase of the camp.
1942: Birthdate of radio personality Michael Savage
1942: Six thousand Jews from Eastern Galicia were deported to Belzec and gassed to death.
1943: This was the deadline the Germans gave Spain to repatriate any Spanish nationals of the Jewish "race."
1943: Broadway premier of the Rodgers and Hammerstein’s hit musical “Oklahoma.” Yes, it took a team of Jews to create this most famous of all American musical comedies. This is yet another example of how it was Jews who helped to create what some call "the American myth." It was this ability and not some Jewish plot that explains, in part, the success of Jews in various parts of the American entertainment industry.
1943: Crematorium II at Auschwitz begins operation
1944: It was announced that every Jew in Hungary would be required to wear a yellow badge as of April 5.
1945: Mother Maria of Paris, a Russian nun who had saved many French Jews by hiding them, was killed by the Nazis.
1945: The deportation of Jews from Slovakia comes to an end. In all, German and Slovak authorities deported about 70,000 Jews from Slovakia; about 65,000 of them were murdered or died in concentration camps. The overall figures are inexact, partly because many Jews did not identify themselves, but one 2006 estimate is that approximately 105,000 Slovak Jews, or 77% of their prewar population, died during the war.
1946: Birthdate of Gabe Kaplan in Brooklyn, New York. The comedian and actor gained famed as the teacher in “Welcome Back Kotter,” a television show that launched the career of John Travolta.
1948: Birthdate of Rhea Perlman in Brooklyn, New York. She gained fame for her roles in the television comedies “Taxi” and “Cheers.”
1949: The Dominion of Newfoundland joins the Canadian Confederation and becomes the 10th Province of Canada. There were somewhere between 215 and 360 Jews living in Newfoundland at this time. “The real history of the Newfoundland Jewish community began with the arrival in St. John's of Israel Perlin from the United States. He was instrumental in founding the first synagogue in Newfoundland, the Hebrew Congregation of Newfoundland, in 1909. The census of 1935 reported 215 Jews living in Newfoundland. The census of 1971 showed that that number had grown to 360.
1953: Birthdate of Ehud Banai, an Israeli singer and songwriter.
1954: As tensions grew between Jordan and Israel due to the attacks by terrorists based in Jordan, the British cabinet discussed military options for responding to a possible strike by Israel into Jordan.
1958: The US Navy formed an atomic submarine division. Admiral Hyman Rickover is considered the “father of the atomic Navy.” Thanks to his efforts, America developed a fleet of nuclear submarines that provided the United States with its strongest strategic edge during the Cold War with the Soviet Union.
1952: The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel had become the ninth nation to ratify the agreement to eliminate trade barriers on the import of educational, scientific or cultural materials, sponsored by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Forty tons of Jerusalem stone, hewn from the Castel quarry, went into the building of the UN headquarters in New York as Israel's contribution to the project. The stone was sufficient for 300 sq.m. of flooring. Israel purchased 40,000 tons of wheat from South Africa.
1953: The number of Israeli unemployed as of this date was 16,350.
1977: The Jerusalem Post reported that West Germany protested to Israel that it had not been told for more than a year of the arrest of two young West Germans, Brigitte Schultz and Thomas Reuter, who planned, on January 18, 1976, to shoot down an El Al plane in Nairobi. Five terrorists were arrested by Kenya: two Germans and three Arabs. Israel announced that they would soon be tried in camera, by a military court.
1979: In Jerusalem, Israel, Gali Atari & Milk and Honey win the twenty-fourth Eurovision Song Contest for Israel singing "Hallelujah.
1993: With Israel reeling from its worst wave of Arab violence in years, including the shooting deaths of two policemen this morning, the Government indefinitely closed the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip today. The Israelis also relaxed the rules under which their soldiers may fire at armed Palestinians. Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin went on national television tonight to urge that Israelis stand firm in "an all-out war against terrorism." But he also acknowledged what everyone here already knew, that the country was "in the midst of a difficult period" of lethal attacks, with no end in sight. Although Mr. Rabin's center-left coalition seems in no immediate danger, political commentators say there has been a loss of popular support for a leader who entered office nearly nine months ago promising to protect Israelis' personal safety while moving rapidly toward a peace agreement with the Palestinians. No Accord, and Less Security Instead, he has no peace accord, and he must contend with a shriveled sense of security among many of his people. It is far from the first time that the territories have been shut. Sometimes, closings have lasted only a few days. The longest period in recent years was six weeks in 1991, during the Persian Gulf war. Some Government officials say the prevailing public mood of outrage and fear may limit the Prime Minister's ability to make compromises to help restart the stalled Middle East peace talks and then move them in a purposeful direction. "The whole situation makes it much more difficult for the Government to maneuver," one official said. Since the start of the Palestinian uprising in December 1987, there has not been a period of such sustained anti-Israel violence as in the last month. Just about every day, there have been stabbings and shootings that have left 15 Israelis dead in March, more than in any month in several years. The number of wounded is higher still. Palestinian Casualties Higher No matter how bad the violence has been for Israelis, the casualty rate remains much higher for Palestinians in their street clashes and other encounters with Israeli soldiers. At least 26 have been killed this month. But the relentlessness of the recent attacks has been a shock for Israelis. Tabloid newspapers have contributed to the mood with enormous pictures of gore, like one on Monday of a blood-drenched victim with a knife sticking out of his back. People have been whipped into "a state of mass hysteria that plays into the hands of the terrorists," said Prof. Ariel Merari, a terrorism expert at Tel Aviv University. In the last day alone, the death toll climbed by three. A Jewish settler was fatally stabbed on Monday night by an Arab in the Gaza Strip, and two traffic policemen were shot in the head at close range early today as they sat in their patrol car in Hadera, which is 25 miles north of Tel Aviv, well within Israel's pre-1967 borders. Later, an armed wing of the Hamas movement of Muslim militants took responsibility. Hamas was the main target of Mr. Rabin's deportation in mid-December of more than 400 accused militants from the occupied territories to Lebanon, an action that produced worldwide condemnation of Israel and complicated efforts to get the peace negotiations going again. Killings Have Not Ended While Israel insists that those expulsions seriously damaged Hamas operations, terrorism obviously has not disappeared, a point reinforced today with the killing of the two policemen. Under pressure to act swiftly, the Prime Minister called his Cabinet into emergency session, and then announced that the 1.8 million Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank would be barred from entering Israel until further notice. Ever-roiling Gaza was already sealed off on Monday. The goal, officials said, is a cooling-off period for the Arab and Jewish populations -- a move intended, some said, not just to protect Israelis from possible attacks, but also to make it less likely that Palestinians will suffer Israeli reprisals. Thus far, the sharpest reactions to the killings have come from Jewish settlers in the territories, who have intensified street protests and their own violence. Palestinians in Gaza said settlers had taken revenge today for the latest killing there by setting fire to a mosque in the town of Khan Yunis. Mr. Rabin promised stepped-up army operations in the territories, and announced new open-fire regulations for soldiers, saying they may shoot at any Palestinian carrying a weapon, even someone in no position to use it. In the past, soldiers' lives had to be in immediate danger before they could fire. The time has also come, the Prime Minister said, for Israelis to end their ingrained dependence on cheap Arab labor, so that there will be fewer Palestinians in their midst and fewer opportunities for terrorism. In past struggles, he said tonight, "we didn't win by the strength of our weapons, but rather by the strength of our spirit and the staying power of the people, standing behind the army even in times of trouble." But if Mr. Rabin viewed the fight against terrorism as a war, he did not enjoy instant national cohesion. Instead, he found himself accused by right-wing opposition parties, led by Likud, of doing too little, too late. Many on the right accused the Prime Minister himself of inspiring Arab violence by having been conciliatory in the peace talks, and some called on him to step aside in favor of an ill-defined Government of national unity with emergency powers. For their part, Palestinians denounced this latest shutdown of the territories as a form of collective punishment that would deny a regular income to hundreds of thousands of people. Faisal al-Husseini, the Palestinian leader in East Jerusalem, called the closing "a new obstacle to the peace process."
1998(4th of Nisan, 5758): Former New York Congresswoman Bella Abzug passed away at the age 77.
1999: Did you ever wonder how Jews celebrate Pesach, the holiday of “Spring,” in the Southern Hemisphere where it is really Autumn? In “An Argentine Passover, Then and Now,” Joan Nathan gives us some sense of the celebration.
Passover comes in the fall in the Southern Hemisphere, but even for a gaucho judio in the pampas, the eight-day holiday means what it does for most Jews in the United States: gefilte fish with horseradish, chicken soup with matzoh balls and roast chicken. But there, cooks are much more involved in the preparations. Only recently have they had access to store-bought Passover staples. Buenos Aires is home to the largest concentration of Jews in Latin America, and Argentina has the seventh-largest Jewish population by country in the world: 206,000. Most came fleeing the pogroms of Russia, although about 15 percent are Sephardic, from Syria, Turkey and North Africa. Unlike Eastern European immigrants to the United States, however, many of the earliest settlers were farmers. Diego Guelar, the Argentine Ambassador to the United States, said his great-grandfather arrived from Lithuania in 1891 with the Jewish Colonization Association of Paris, a fund established by the philanthropist Baron Maurice de Hirsch to create Jewish agricultural colonies in Argentina. Like a few of these Jewish cowboys, the Guelars stayed on the land, eventually swapping farming for cattle breeding. From his home in Washington, Mr. Guelar recalled that at his childhood Passovers on a ranch in Entre Rios Province, about 400 miles northeast of Buenos Aires, roast chicken was on the menu, along with Eastern European recipes like potatoes stuffed with ground beef and onions. These are called chremslach in Eastern Europe and albondigas de papas in Argentina. An avocado and lettuce salad replaces the asparagus served in the United States. Until recently, most Passover dishes in Argentina were made from scratch. Very few of the kinds of products now taken for granted in this country were sold in stores. Ambassador Guelar, who is 48, recalls how on his ranch the gefilte fish was made by hand-grinding carp, whitefish and pike, and then stuffing it into the skin of a large carp. Today, with more kosher-for-Passover products available, like vinegar and oil, Argentines can eat their roast chicken marinated in chimichurri sauce, a garlicky blend of vinegar and spices. The recipe here is from Naomi Sisson, the wife of the Israeli Consul General in New York, who grew up in Rosario, in the province just northeast of Entre Rios. Argentina is one of the few countries where kosher butchers provide the beef casings to make kishke, the Jewish holiday dish of intestines stuffed with potatoes, matzo meal, eggs, chicken fat and spices. ''Once, there were 50 kosher butchers in Buenos Aires,'' Adolfo Maleh told me during a recent visit to Argentina. Now, he is one of the 20 or so remaining in the entire country. Mr. Maleh, who is Sephardic, makes beef chorizo at his Carniceria Simon in Once (pronounced OWN-say), traditionally the city's Jewish neighborhood. The stores in Once and other neighborhoods now offer packaged products for Passover from Israel and the United States, like cake mixes and tomato paste and soups, as well as the local Yanovsky brand of matzo and matzo meal. Many in the younger generation use these time-saving products, but the old-timers do not. Susana Shalalof, who has cooked for 35 years at Succoth David, one of the few kosher restaurants in Buenos Aires, makes traditional Syrian dishes at home for Passover (the restaurant closes for the holiday). Her stuffed vegetables, from a recipe brought by her parents from Syria, are filled with beef or lamb, rice and pine nuts, seasoned with cumin, allspice and cinnamon and served in a sauce of tomato, tamarind and cinnamon, all ingredients permissible at Passover for Syrian Jews. Unlike cooks in this country, Mrs. Shalalof, like most Argentines, doubles the amount of beef in her traditional recipes for Passover, and throughout the year.
2002: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of interest to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback editions of "Constantine’s Sword: The Church and the Jews: A History" by James Carroll and "Walking the Bible: A Journey by Land Through the Five Books of Moses by Bruce Feller.
2003: National Security Advisor Dr. Condoleezza Rice addressed the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee’s Policy Conference.
2005: ABC News reported that Ted Koppel will leave that organization when his contract expires in December of 2005. Mr. Koppel has been with the network for 42 years and has hosted the popular late night news program “Nightline” for the past twenty-five years. Nightline provided a hard-news late night alternative to the talk shows hosted by the two other networks. Nightline’s audience would always grow during periods of crisis such as the seizure of the American embassy in Teheran and the prolonged hostage seizure that followed.
2005: At the Jewish Museum in New York, a distinguished panel of speakers, including exhibition co-curators Emily Bilski and Emily Braun, as well as Whitney Museum curator Elizabeth Sussman and Union College professor Brenda Wineapple, consider the contributions of women such as Gertrude Stein, Margherita Sarfatti, and Florine Stettheimer to literature and the visual arts from the late 18th century through the 1930s.
2007: Shabbat Ha Gadol.
2007: In Cedar Rapids, the show “Remnants of Memories” Interpretations of the collage by artists Tom Lee and Elizabeth Levi sponsored by Ginsberg’s Jewelry comes to a close.
2008: Hillel receives a $10.7 million grant, from the Jim Joseph Foundation which the college oriented organization says is the largest in its history. The grant will be disbursed over five years and enable Hillel to engage an additional 30,000 students, according to a news release. Hillel intends to use the funds to place Jewish educators on 10 new campuses as part of its Experiential Educator Exemplar program. The grant also will go to support the Campus Entrepreneurs Initiative, which employs college students to engage their peers in Jewish life.
2008: In New York, The Center for Jewish History presents a lecture by Dr. Atina Grossman entitled “Close Encounters: Jews and Germans in Occupied Germany during which she will discuss the story of the "close encounters" in Allied occupied Germany between Jewish survivors of the Nazi Final Solution who found themselves on "cursed German soil" after the German surrender, and the defeated Germans with whom they continually interacted.
2008: End of Women’s History Month.
2008: In Vancouver, B.C., the Vancouver Jewish Film Festival presents a screening of “Samuel Bak: Painter of Questions.” “In 2001, on the occasion of a retrospective exhibit of his work, painter Samuel Bak returned to his hometown of Vilna (now Vilnius, Lithuania). There, he walked the streets of the Vilna ghetto where he was interned with his parents during the Holocaust and visited the nearby forest where his father and grandparents were murdered. Amongst the tall trees of the Ponari forest, Samuel Bak's life came full circle. This documentary explores Bak's work and life through the lens of his childhood experiences. Born in 1933 in Vilna, Poland, young Samuel was declared a child prodigy. The happiness of his childhood came to an end, however, the day his family was marched into the Jewish Ghetto, changing his life and his artistic vision forever. Saved from the death camps by his father, the miracle of his survival became and still is a recurring theme in his art. Insightful interviews with the artist, Holocaust scholar Lawrence Langer, and Pucker Gallery director Bernard Pucker explore the unique and powerful visual vocabulary and iconography of Bak's work, which is held in museums, galleries, and collections worldwide. "Ignited by haunting images from his memories of the horror of the Holocaust, Bak’s work reflects not just the fragility of human existence but also the triumph of the human spirit in the face of atrocity. The imagery in his paintings—from discarded and distorted teddy bears to his immensely moving self-portrait, in which a wide-eyed boy emerges from a burlap sack—allows viewers to travel in both time and state of mind to places far beyond the Holocaust."
2008: “New Jerusalem: The Interrogation of Baruch de Spinoza at Talmud Torah Congregation: Amsterdam, July 27, 1656” was among the nominees for the 23rd annual Lucille Lortel Awards, celebrating excellence in Off-Broadway theatre.
2008(24th of Adar II, 5768): Rabbi Herbert A. Friedman, a dominant figure in American Jewish philanthropy during Israel’s formative years, passed away at his New York home at the age of 89. He succumbed after a prolonged period of illness, according to his wife, Francine. Friedman served for nearly two decades, from 1954 to 1971, as the chief executive officer of the United Jewish Appeal, the central American Jewish fundraising network supporting Israel and international Jewish relief. The UJA is a precursor organization to today’s United Jewish Communities. As the UJA’s executive vice chairman, Friedman oversaw the raising of hundreds of millions of dollars for the Jewish state during its critical early years, when American Jewish philanthropy was a vital lifeline. He created several key programs that survive to this day and help to define the Jewish-federated philanthropic system, including solidarity missions to Israel, today a staple feature of Jewish fundraising, and the Israel Emergency Fund. Another was the UJA Young Leadership Cabinet, which anticipated the decline of Jewish ethnic loyalty and worked to create new generations of leadership bound by social and personal ties. Friedman was born in 1918 to immigrant parents in New Haven, Conn., and graduated from Yale University in 1938. After graduation he studied for the rabbinate at New York’s Jewish Institute of Religion under Stephen S. Wise, the legendary Reform rabbi and Zionist leader. He served for several years as a pulpit rabbi in Denver but left in 1943 to join the U.S. Army as a chaplain in the European Theater. In the years immediately following World War II, while assisting Holocaust survivors in displaced persons camps in Germany, Friedman was recruited by future Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion to work with the Haganah, the underground Jewish paramilitary force in Palestine. He continued to work with survivors, getting them visas and assisting the clandestine immigration of Jews to Palestine, known as Aliyah Bet. He was later decorated by the State of Israel for his service. In 1947, he returned to the United States and went to work for the UJA, becoming chief executive in 1954. A charismatic leader, he became a larger-than-life figure, consulted by prime ministers, popes and presidents. UJA annual revenues rose during his tenure to $450 million from $50 million, according to UJC. Friedman stepped down as chief executive in 1974, but stayed with the organization until 1982.In 1985, Friedman began a second career as president and co-founder, with retailer Leslie Wexner, of the Wexner Heritage Foundation, which cultivates Jewish leadership through intensive adult education programs.In 2001, he published a memoir, “Roots of the Future,” about his life and adventures. A close colleague in philanthropic work, former UJA lay president Herschel Blumberg, described him as a self-effacing leader utterly devoted to the mission. “He didn’t just talk about himself, even though he did have a very impressive history, both during and following the Second World War,” Blumberg said. Friedman, Blumberg added, was “a quiet and honest” man who taught, above all else, “that we have to have determination in what we’re doing, and convey the impact of what we’re doing.”
2009(6th of Nisan, 5769): Ruth Fredman Cernea, 74, a cultural anthropologist who wrote on topics that included the Jews of Myanmar and the annual mock debate at the University of Chicago on the respective merits of Jewish holiday foods such as latkes and hamantaschen, died today of pancreatic cancer at her son's home in Coral Gables, Fla. She was a Bethesda resident. Dr. Cernea dedicated her scholarly career to the study and interpretation of Jewish culture and symbols. Her books included "The Passover Seder" (1992), an anthropological analysis of the Passover holiday and ritual; and "Cosmopolitans at Home: The Sephardic Jews of Washington, D.C." (1982), the product of five years of research among Jewish immigrants from North Africa living in Washington. "The Great Latke Hamantash Debate" (2006) is a collection of "scholarly" presentations on behalf of the latke, the potato pancake traditionally served during Hanukkah, and the hamantasch, the triangular filled sweet pastry associated with Purim. The annual event grew out of a street corner debate one night shortly after World War II involving a rabbi, an anthropologist and a historian in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. Unable to reach agreement, the rabbi suggested opening the question to eminences of the nearby University of Chicago. The mock debate continues, drawing more than a thousand spectators every year to hear renowned scholars, university presidents and Nobel laureates offer exquisitely ridiculous arguments in favor of their favorite kosher holiday cuisine. "Jews have always been able to use humor to lighten the load," Dr. Cernea told the Chicago Tribune in 2005. "Jewish humor is not silly, but it is absurd absurdity. It is the opposite of deep seriousness. In Jewish thought absurdity and humor is particularly an antidote to seriousness. . . . It could only happen at a place that is deeply serious." Dr. Cernea was on her second honeymoon in 1987 when she discovered a little-known Jewish community in Myanmar (Burma) and the country's only synagogue, the historic Musmeah Yeshua Synagogue in Yangon (formerly Rangoon). Her discovery spurred an enduring interest in the Jewish communities of the former British colonies of South and Southeast Asia. More than 20 years of research went into her book "Almost Englishmen: Baghdadi Jews in British Burma" (2007). She was born Ruth Gruber in Philadelphia and received a bachelor's degree in English literature in 1956 and a doctorate in cultural anthropology in 1982, both from Temple University. She moved to Montgomery County in 1977. From 1982 to 1996, she served as director of research and publications for the Hillel Foundation and edited several annual editions of the "Hillel Guide to Jewish Life on Campus." She lectured at a number of universities and institutions. She was a former president of the Washington Association of Professional Anthropologists.
2009: Yeshiva University hosts the the Israel and India International Conference which features the theme "A Relationship Comes of Age." Presenters include Nathan Katz (Florida International University), Amit Kapoor (Management Development Institute, India), Efraim Inbar (Bar-Ilan University), Shlomo Mor-Yosef (Hadassah Medical Organization), Maina Chawla Sing (University of Delhi), P R Kumaraswamy (Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi), Gadi Ariav (Tel Aviv University).
2009: Gottschalks, a chain of department stores that was founded by German Jewish immigrant Emil Gottschalk in 1904, “announced it would liquidate its remaining stores.”
2010(16th of Nisan, 5770): First Day of the Omer; Second Day of Pesach
2010: An exhibition presented by the American Jewish Historical Society entitled “Pages from a Performing Life: The Scrapbooks of Molly Picon” featuring the 22 scrapbooks keep by Molly Picon and her husband Jacob Kalish chronicling their extraordinary 50-year career, is scheduled to come to an end.
2010(16th of Nisan, 5770): Steven Zilberman died while serving his country. “Miroslav Zilberman, a Navy pilot known to his friends as Steven, moved with his parents from Ukraine to Columbus, Ohio, in the early 1990s. His parents, Anna and Boris, did not want their son to be forced into military service in their native land. AP reports describe Zilberman as grandson of Gregory Sokolov, a major in the Soviet Army in World War II. Zilberman decided to follow his grandfather’s footsteps and joined the Navy after graduating from Bexley High School in 1997. He went on to graduate from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., where he majored in computer science. Zilberman’s plane, an E-2C Hawkeye, was returning to the carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower following a mission supporting operations in Afghanistan when the plane experienced a malfunction. Zilberman ordered his crew mates to eject before going down with the plane into the North Arabian Sea.”
2011: Yosef Begun a former Soviet Prisoner of Conscience is scheduled to speak at noon today in Washington, DC.
2011: “The Army of Crime” and “Hidden Children” are two of the films scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.
2011: “The Human Resources Manager” is one of the films scheduled to be shown at the Hartford Jewish Film Festival
Created, Compiled and Edited by Mitchell A. Levin Cedar Rapids, IA melech3@mchsi.com
Copyright; March, 2011; Mitchell A. Levin
1146: Bernard of Clairvaux preaches his famous sermon in a field at Vézelay, urging the necessity of a Second Crusade. Louis VII is present, and joins the Crusade. Unlike the First Crusade, the Second Crusade is led by two monarchs - Louis VII of France and Conrad III of Germany. The “German connection” led to more suffering for the Jews of the Rhineland. Thanks to the incitement by one monk, the town of Wurburg was demolished during the massacres of Jews living along the Rhine River. As had happened during the First Crusade, the Christian warriors decided to slaughter the Infidels in their midst as they moved to free the Holy Land from the Infidels. The growing class of Christian merchants benefited from the violence since the destruction of the Jewish community destroyed their Jewish competitors. All Christians did not engage in this anti-Semitic behavior. Bernard himself tried to protect the Jewish population. His message of Crusade was heard. His message concerning the Jews was not.
1283: Massacre of the Jews of Mayence in Germany.
1381: During a popular uprising in France known as The Revolt of the Maillotins, Jews in France were murdered and their property plundered for next three or four days. The regent exercising royal power for the youthful Charles VI was unable to save the Jews or gain them indemnification for their loss.
1492: Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon issued the Alhambra Decree or Edict of Expulsion, ordering her 150,000 Jewish subjects to convert to Christianity or face expulsion. Jews, unlike conversos and Marranos, were not subject to the Inquisition. So, the Church leveled a ritual murder accusation against them in Granada and was thus was able to call for the expulsion of both Jews as well as Marranos from Spain. The Marranos themselves were accused of complicity in the case so both groups were ordered to leave within four months. Torquemada, the director of the Inquisition (and incidentally of Jewish descent), defended this against Don Isaac Abarbanel. The edict was passed, and over fifteen thousand Jews had to flee - some to the Province of Aragon and others, like Abarbanel, to Naples. Still others found temporary sanctuary in Portugal.
1596: Birthdate of Rene Descartes, the French mathematician and philosopher who was one of the two main sources from which Spinoza derived his view of the world.
1648: In an attempt to explain the drop off in the production of vanilla, Commander Beekman of Essequibo and Pomeroon wrote the following letter to his superiors in Amsterdam today.
“The Jew Salomon de la Roche having died some 8 to 9 months ago, the trade in vanilla has come to an end, since no one here knows how to prepare it, so as to develop proper aroma and keep it from spoiling. I have not heard of any this whole year. Little is found here. Most of it is found in Pomeroon, whither this Jew frequently traveled, and he sometimes used to make me a present of a little. In navigating along the river, I have sometimes seen some on the trees and picked with my own hands, and it was prepared by the Jew....I shall do my best to obtain for the company as much as shall be feasible, but I am afraid it will spoil, since I do not know how to prepare it.” [The letter is illustrative of the vital role Jews played in the production of vanilla.]
1745: The Jews of Prague were exiled.
1783: Emperor Joseph II allowed the Jews to live in so-called "Royal Cities" including Pest, which would later be the “Pest” in Budapest. By 1787 81,000 Jews would be living in Hungary. The Hungarian Jewish community would grow large and prosper but would all but perish in the Holocaust. Tragically, it was the Holocaust that produced Hungary’s most famous Jew, Elie Weisel.
1799(24th of Adar II, 5559): Lorenzo Bertran was subjected to an auto-da-fe ("act of faith," in reality the public ceremony when the sentence of the Inquisition was read and carried out) in Seville. Supposedly he was the last person to be punished for attempting to lead others to Judaism in Spain. It was not the end of the auto-da-fe; a ceremony that was reported to have taken place in Mexico in isolated instance in the early 19th century.
1810: Hayyim Selig Slonimski was born in Byelostok, Russian Empire (modern Białystok, Poland) was born today.
1821: Abolition of the Portuguese Inquisition. The Inquisition was established in 1531 meaning it lasted for 290 years.
1851: Birthdate of Sir Francis Henry Dillon Bell, the first native of New Zealand and the first Jew to serve as Prime Minister of the land of the Kiwis.
1856: The Jews of Belarus or White Russia were denied the right to wear any distinctive garments that would mark them as different from the rest of the citizenry. At the time White Russia was part of the Czar's Russia with Poland and Lithuania to the west, Ukraine to the South, and Russia to the east. Minsk, home to a large Jewish population is today the capital of an independent Belarus.
1863: An article entitled “The Will of Commodore Levy--The Bequest of the Monticello Estate to the People of the United States Void” published today described the litigation surrounding attempts to “break” the late Jewish naval hero’s will. “This was an action to obtain a construction of the will of Commodore Levy, in respect to the bequest of the People of the United States of a farm owned by him, and 200 acres adjoining it, at Monticello, Virginia, and also in respect to a bequest of $1,000 to the Jews' Hospital in this City. The Court now rendered the following judgment, declaring the devise and bequest of the Monticello estate, and the 200 acres adjoining, to the people of the United States void, and that said portions of the estate descended to and vested in the heirs at law and next of kin of the testator; also that the Jews' Hospital of New-York are entitled to have their bequest." Such was the endorsement upon the papers.”
1865: The new Synagogue of the Congregation Shaar Hashomayim, (Gate of Heaven), in Rivington-street, between Ludlow and Orchard, was formally consecrated this afternoon.
1867: An article published today entitled “The Insurance Companies and ‘Jew Risks’” reported on a meeting where members of the community including the mayor or Richmond expressed their anger over the decision of insurance companies to no longer accept ‘Jew Risks.’ The mayor, who had been in the insurance business for years told the crowd that he had numerous dealings with Jews over the years and found them to be honest. No reason was given for the decision of the insurance companies.
1880: Alexander II of Russia was assassinated, and with him his half-hearted liberalism. He was succeeded by Alexander III who, devoted to medievalism, urged the return to Russian civilization. The most influential person during his reign was Pobestonostov, his financier and procurator of the Holy Synod, who earned the title "the Second Torquemada."
1885: The New York Times reported that “the Jewish festival of Pesach, or Passover, instituted to commemorate the exodus of the children of Israel from Egypt, commenced last evening and its celebration will be continued among the orthodox Hebrews throughout the world for the next eight days. This festival is also known as Hag Ha’Matzos, or the fest of the unleavened bread.”
1889: The Eiffel Tower was inaugurated. One of Chagall’s most famous paintings was “Eiffel Tower, Serenade.”
1890: The New York Times reported that “the diary of Sir Moses Montefiore and Lady Montefiore which the Belforde Clark Company" has published "in two octave volumes covers the period from 1812 to 1883. The papers of Sir Moses were left to his Secretary, Dr. Lowe, for arrangement and publication, but Dr. Lowe died upon completing the work and son of Sir Moses, now a resident of this country, then carried it forward.”
1893: A group of Boston Jews belonging to Adath Israel petitioned Judge Ely for the return of wine and brandy which the Judge had previously ruled had been wrongfully seized by the police. Passover begins tonight and the Jews need the wine for the Seder. While the Judge said he would do all that he could to help with the return, “he could find no authority to order the wines returned before May.”
1893: The New York Times reported that “the celebration of the feast of Pesach, or the Passover, will be begun by Jewish people throughout the world at sunset this evening and will be continued for eight days by the Orthodox Jews. Those who have accepted the reform ritual, among them a large number of the Jews in America, continue the celebration only seven days, the first and last days of that period being alone regarded as of special significance and celebrated as holy days.”
1899: Rumania barred Jews from professional and agricultural schools
1904: The New York Times reported that “at sunset last evening the Jewish people throughout the world began the celebration of the festival of "Pesach," or the Passover. This festival was instituted to celebrate the deliverance of the children of Israel from their long bondage in the land of Egypt, and, lasting for eight days, is a season of peculiar observances.”
1912: The New York Times reported that “Interesting archaeological discoveries, showing the observance as far back as 430 B.C. of the Jewish Passover, the festival commemorative of the exodus from Egypt, which Jews throughout the world will celebrate for a week beginning the evening of April 1, are described in the current issue of The American Hebrew.”
1912: The Patriotic League of America, an organization dedicated to helping Jewish young men pursue careers in the army and navy has invited 200 service men stationed in and near New York City to be its guests at Seders for the first two nights of Passover at the Tuxedo Hall in New York. Adjutant General A.F. Ladd of the War Department has responded positively to the League’s lobbying efforts on behalf of the Jewish servicemen and has directed commanding officers to allow the Jewish soldiers to have furloughs so that they can observe the holiday which begins on the evening of April 1.
1912: The New York Times reported that Leopold Plaut, President of the United Hebrew Charities has issued a circular asking that the families of deceased Jews donate the money normally spent for flowers at a funeral to his organization. The organization will send acknowledgements to the donor and the family of the deceased, acknowledging the gift without mentioning the amount.
1921: Albert Einstein lectured in New York on his new theory of relativity.
1922: Birthdate of Lionel Davidson
1925: The town of Afula was founded in the Jezreel Valley. Afula means The Town of Jezreel and it was started with the support of the American Zion Commonwealth. Unfortunately, the town never lived up to the original expectations with the settlers in the Jezreel Valley preferring to go to Haifa for rest and relaxation. The hospital at Afula did prove to be of lasting importance. Afula is a friendly crossroads town with numerous small stores selling what the locals claim to be the "best pistachio nuts in the world."
1926: Jacob Adler, who had suffered a stroke in 1920 and had been in declining health ever since, suddenly collapsed today.
1928: Real birthdate of Jacob Lateiner, Cuban born American pianist. His father would not get around to registering his birth until May of 1928 which has led to confusion about when he was really born.
1929: Birthdate of Ilya Piastetski-Shapiro, famed math theorist who clashed with Soviet authorities. He passed away at the age of 79 on February 21, 2009 in Tel Aviv.
1932: At Tel Aviv, on the final day of the first Jewish Olympics, Americans captured the lion’s share of the victories Sybil Koff of New York “won the women’s triathlon and the high jumps. Gus Hemann … won the men’s 100 meter dash…Leslie Flaksman won the 500 meter race…and Harry Schneider won the javelin, shooting, discus-throwing and men’s triathlon contests.” Victories by European teams included an Austrian first place finish in the 400 – meter race and first place finish by the a team from the Middlesex Regiment in the relay race that earned it the High Commissioner’s Cup.
1935: Hebrew novelist Samuel I. Agnon was awarded the Bialik Prize in Hebrew Literature. The Bialik Prize was established in memory of the dean of Hebrew literature, Chaim Nachman Bialik and is considered the equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize. S.I. Agnon is considered by sum to be a worthy candidate for the Nobel Prize.
1935: The Italian liner Roma arrived in Haifa carrying 1,650 passengers, which is believed to the largest number of people ever brought to Palestine on one ship. Most of the passengers are believed to be headed for Tel Aviv, site of the upcoming Maccabiad.
1935: The Palestine police (an instrument of the British mandatory government) “issued an order today prohibiting a parade of athletes participating in the Maccabiah, the world Jewish athletic games.” The parade was scheduled to be held in Tel Aviv on April 1. The police reportedly were responding to threats of violent outbursts by the Arab populace.
1936: Birthdate of poet, playwright and novelist Marge Piercy. Piercy grew up in the racially divided city of Detroit, where her Jewishness made her the target of bullies. One grandparent was Yiddish-speaking and Orthodox; another was a union organizer murdered for his activism. These influences, together with grief over relatives murdered in the Holocaust, aroused Piercy's political activism. They also strengthened her commitment to remaining involved with issues and matters of Jewish importance.
1937: The Palestine Post reported from Glasgow that the International Labor Party conference deplored the bloodshed in Palestine by terrorists and called upon Jews to resist all attempts by Arab reactionary elements, sometimes supported by the British authorities. The first regulation made by the High Commissioner under the New Palestine Orders allowed the authorities to seize and retain accommodation and food, as they thought fit for the execution of their duty.
1938: According to reports published in the New York Times, Dr. Sigmund Freud cannot leave Vienna and move to the Hague because “the authoritieis have refused to give him a passport.” In other words, the Nazi Austrian government has made the prominent Jewish psychiatrist a prisoner.
1940: Birthdate of Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank.
1941: With encouragement from the Axis powers (Italy and Germany) Rashid Ali al-Gaylani led an anti-British revolt in Iraq much to the detriment of the Jewish population.
1942: In the western Ukraine, the Gestapo organized the first deportation of 5,000 Jews from Stanislawow ghetto to Belzac death camp.It was one of the biggest transports to Belzec in the first phase of the camp.
1942: Birthdate of radio personality Michael Savage
1942: Six thousand Jews from Eastern Galicia were deported to Belzec and gassed to death.
1943: This was the deadline the Germans gave Spain to repatriate any Spanish nationals of the Jewish "race."
1943: Broadway premier of the Rodgers and Hammerstein’s hit musical “Oklahoma.” Yes, it took a team of Jews to create this most famous of all American musical comedies. This is yet another example of how it was Jews who helped to create what some call "the American myth." It was this ability and not some Jewish plot that explains, in part, the success of Jews in various parts of the American entertainment industry.
1943: Crematorium II at Auschwitz begins operation
1944: It was announced that every Jew in Hungary would be required to wear a yellow badge as of April 5.
1945: Mother Maria of Paris, a Russian nun who had saved many French Jews by hiding them, was killed by the Nazis.
1945: The deportation of Jews from Slovakia comes to an end. In all, German and Slovak authorities deported about 70,000 Jews from Slovakia; about 65,000 of them were murdered or died in concentration camps. The overall figures are inexact, partly because many Jews did not identify themselves, but one 2006 estimate is that approximately 105,000 Slovak Jews, or 77% of their prewar population, died during the war.
1946: Birthdate of Gabe Kaplan in Brooklyn, New York. The comedian and actor gained famed as the teacher in “Welcome Back Kotter,” a television show that launched the career of John Travolta.
1948: Birthdate of Rhea Perlman in Brooklyn, New York. She gained fame for her roles in the television comedies “Taxi” and “Cheers.”
1949: The Dominion of Newfoundland joins the Canadian Confederation and becomes the 10th Province of Canada. There were somewhere between 215 and 360 Jews living in Newfoundland at this time. “The real history of the Newfoundland Jewish community began with the arrival in St. John's of Israel Perlin from the United States. He was instrumental in founding the first synagogue in Newfoundland, the Hebrew Congregation of Newfoundland, in 1909. The census of 1935 reported 215 Jews living in Newfoundland. The census of 1971 showed that that number had grown to 360.
1953: Birthdate of Ehud Banai, an Israeli singer and songwriter.
1954: As tensions grew between Jordan and Israel due to the attacks by terrorists based in Jordan, the British cabinet discussed military options for responding to a possible strike by Israel into Jordan.
1958: The US Navy formed an atomic submarine division. Admiral Hyman Rickover is considered the “father of the atomic Navy.” Thanks to his efforts, America developed a fleet of nuclear submarines that provided the United States with its strongest strategic edge during the Cold War with the Soviet Union.
1952: The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel had become the ninth nation to ratify the agreement to eliminate trade barriers on the import of educational, scientific or cultural materials, sponsored by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Forty tons of Jerusalem stone, hewn from the Castel quarry, went into the building of the UN headquarters in New York as Israel's contribution to the project. The stone was sufficient for 300 sq.m. of flooring. Israel purchased 40,000 tons of wheat from South Africa.
1953: The number of Israeli unemployed as of this date was 16,350.
1977: The Jerusalem Post reported that West Germany protested to Israel that it had not been told for more than a year of the arrest of two young West Germans, Brigitte Schultz and Thomas Reuter, who planned, on January 18, 1976, to shoot down an El Al plane in Nairobi. Five terrorists were arrested by Kenya: two Germans and three Arabs. Israel announced that they would soon be tried in camera, by a military court.
1979: In Jerusalem, Israel, Gali Atari & Milk and Honey win the twenty-fourth Eurovision Song Contest for Israel singing "Hallelujah.
1993: With Israel reeling from its worst wave of Arab violence in years, including the shooting deaths of two policemen this morning, the Government indefinitely closed the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip today. The Israelis also relaxed the rules under which their soldiers may fire at armed Palestinians. Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin went on national television tonight to urge that Israelis stand firm in "an all-out war against terrorism." But he also acknowledged what everyone here already knew, that the country was "in the midst of a difficult period" of lethal attacks, with no end in sight. Although Mr. Rabin's center-left coalition seems in no immediate danger, political commentators say there has been a loss of popular support for a leader who entered office nearly nine months ago promising to protect Israelis' personal safety while moving rapidly toward a peace agreement with the Palestinians. No Accord, and Less Security Instead, he has no peace accord, and he must contend with a shriveled sense of security among many of his people. It is far from the first time that the territories have been shut. Sometimes, closings have lasted only a few days. The longest period in recent years was six weeks in 1991, during the Persian Gulf war. Some Government officials say the prevailing public mood of outrage and fear may limit the Prime Minister's ability to make compromises to help restart the stalled Middle East peace talks and then move them in a purposeful direction. "The whole situation makes it much more difficult for the Government to maneuver," one official said. Since the start of the Palestinian uprising in December 1987, there has not been a period of such sustained anti-Israel violence as in the last month. Just about every day, there have been stabbings and shootings that have left 15 Israelis dead in March, more than in any month in several years. The number of wounded is higher still. Palestinian Casualties Higher No matter how bad the violence has been for Israelis, the casualty rate remains much higher for Palestinians in their street clashes and other encounters with Israeli soldiers. At least 26 have been killed this month. But the relentlessness of the recent attacks has been a shock for Israelis. Tabloid newspapers have contributed to the mood with enormous pictures of gore, like one on Monday of a blood-drenched victim with a knife sticking out of his back. People have been whipped into "a state of mass hysteria that plays into the hands of the terrorists," said Prof. Ariel Merari, a terrorism expert at Tel Aviv University. In the last day alone, the death toll climbed by three. A Jewish settler was fatally stabbed on Monday night by an Arab in the Gaza Strip, and two traffic policemen were shot in the head at close range early today as they sat in their patrol car in Hadera, which is 25 miles north of Tel Aviv, well within Israel's pre-1967 borders. Later, an armed wing of the Hamas movement of Muslim militants took responsibility. Hamas was the main target of Mr. Rabin's deportation in mid-December of more than 400 accused militants from the occupied territories to Lebanon, an action that produced worldwide condemnation of Israel and complicated efforts to get the peace negotiations going again. Killings Have Not Ended While Israel insists that those expulsions seriously damaged Hamas operations, terrorism obviously has not disappeared, a point reinforced today with the killing of the two policemen. Under pressure to act swiftly, the Prime Minister called his Cabinet into emergency session, and then announced that the 1.8 million Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank would be barred from entering Israel until further notice. Ever-roiling Gaza was already sealed off on Monday. The goal, officials said, is a cooling-off period for the Arab and Jewish populations -- a move intended, some said, not just to protect Israelis from possible attacks, but also to make it less likely that Palestinians will suffer Israeli reprisals. Thus far, the sharpest reactions to the killings have come from Jewish settlers in the territories, who have intensified street protests and their own violence. Palestinians in Gaza said settlers had taken revenge today for the latest killing there by setting fire to a mosque in the town of Khan Yunis. Mr. Rabin promised stepped-up army operations in the territories, and announced new open-fire regulations for soldiers, saying they may shoot at any Palestinian carrying a weapon, even someone in no position to use it. In the past, soldiers' lives had to be in immediate danger before they could fire. The time has also come, the Prime Minister said, for Israelis to end their ingrained dependence on cheap Arab labor, so that there will be fewer Palestinians in their midst and fewer opportunities for terrorism. In past struggles, he said tonight, "we didn't win by the strength of our weapons, but rather by the strength of our spirit and the staying power of the people, standing behind the army even in times of trouble." But if Mr. Rabin viewed the fight against terrorism as a war, he did not enjoy instant national cohesion. Instead, he found himself accused by right-wing opposition parties, led by Likud, of doing too little, too late. Many on the right accused the Prime Minister himself of inspiring Arab violence by having been conciliatory in the peace talks, and some called on him to step aside in favor of an ill-defined Government of national unity with emergency powers. For their part, Palestinians denounced this latest shutdown of the territories as a form of collective punishment that would deny a regular income to hundreds of thousands of people. Faisal al-Husseini, the Palestinian leader in East Jerusalem, called the closing "a new obstacle to the peace process."
1998(4th of Nisan, 5758): Former New York Congresswoman Bella Abzug passed away at the age 77.
1999: Did you ever wonder how Jews celebrate Pesach, the holiday of “Spring,” in the Southern Hemisphere where it is really Autumn? In “An Argentine Passover, Then and Now,” Joan Nathan gives us some sense of the celebration.
Passover comes in the fall in the Southern Hemisphere, but even for a gaucho judio in the pampas, the eight-day holiday means what it does for most Jews in the United States: gefilte fish with horseradish, chicken soup with matzoh balls and roast chicken. But there, cooks are much more involved in the preparations. Only recently have they had access to store-bought Passover staples. Buenos Aires is home to the largest concentration of Jews in Latin America, and Argentina has the seventh-largest Jewish population by country in the world: 206,000. Most came fleeing the pogroms of Russia, although about 15 percent are Sephardic, from Syria, Turkey and North Africa. Unlike Eastern European immigrants to the United States, however, many of the earliest settlers were farmers. Diego Guelar, the Argentine Ambassador to the United States, said his great-grandfather arrived from Lithuania in 1891 with the Jewish Colonization Association of Paris, a fund established by the philanthropist Baron Maurice de Hirsch to create Jewish agricultural colonies in Argentina. Like a few of these Jewish cowboys, the Guelars stayed on the land, eventually swapping farming for cattle breeding. From his home in Washington, Mr. Guelar recalled that at his childhood Passovers on a ranch in Entre Rios Province, about 400 miles northeast of Buenos Aires, roast chicken was on the menu, along with Eastern European recipes like potatoes stuffed with ground beef and onions. These are called chremslach in Eastern Europe and albondigas de papas in Argentina. An avocado and lettuce salad replaces the asparagus served in the United States. Until recently, most Passover dishes in Argentina were made from scratch. Very few of the kinds of products now taken for granted in this country were sold in stores. Ambassador Guelar, who is 48, recalls how on his ranch the gefilte fish was made by hand-grinding carp, whitefish and pike, and then stuffing it into the skin of a large carp. Today, with more kosher-for-Passover products available, like vinegar and oil, Argentines can eat their roast chicken marinated in chimichurri sauce, a garlicky blend of vinegar and spices. The recipe here is from Naomi Sisson, the wife of the Israeli Consul General in New York, who grew up in Rosario, in the province just northeast of Entre Rios. Argentina is one of the few countries where kosher butchers provide the beef casings to make kishke, the Jewish holiday dish of intestines stuffed with potatoes, matzo meal, eggs, chicken fat and spices. ''Once, there were 50 kosher butchers in Buenos Aires,'' Adolfo Maleh told me during a recent visit to Argentina. Now, he is one of the 20 or so remaining in the entire country. Mr. Maleh, who is Sephardic, makes beef chorizo at his Carniceria Simon in Once (pronounced OWN-say), traditionally the city's Jewish neighborhood. The stores in Once and other neighborhoods now offer packaged products for Passover from Israel and the United States, like cake mixes and tomato paste and soups, as well as the local Yanovsky brand of matzo and matzo meal. Many in the younger generation use these time-saving products, but the old-timers do not. Susana Shalalof, who has cooked for 35 years at Succoth David, one of the few kosher restaurants in Buenos Aires, makes traditional Syrian dishes at home for Passover (the restaurant closes for the holiday). Her stuffed vegetables, from a recipe brought by her parents from Syria, are filled with beef or lamb, rice and pine nuts, seasoned with cumin, allspice and cinnamon and served in a sauce of tomato, tamarind and cinnamon, all ingredients permissible at Passover for Syrian Jews. Unlike cooks in this country, Mrs. Shalalof, like most Argentines, doubles the amount of beef in her traditional recipes for Passover, and throughout the year.
2002: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of interest to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback editions of "Constantine’s Sword: The Church and the Jews: A History" by James Carroll and "Walking the Bible: A Journey by Land Through the Five Books of Moses by Bruce Feller.
2003: National Security Advisor Dr. Condoleezza Rice addressed the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee’s Policy Conference.
2005: ABC News reported that Ted Koppel will leave that organization when his contract expires in December of 2005. Mr. Koppel has been with the network for 42 years and has hosted the popular late night news program “Nightline” for the past twenty-five years. Nightline provided a hard-news late night alternative to the talk shows hosted by the two other networks. Nightline’s audience would always grow during periods of crisis such as the seizure of the American embassy in Teheran and the prolonged hostage seizure that followed.
2005: At the Jewish Museum in New York, a distinguished panel of speakers, including exhibition co-curators Emily Bilski and Emily Braun, as well as Whitney Museum curator Elizabeth Sussman and Union College professor Brenda Wineapple, consider the contributions of women such as Gertrude Stein, Margherita Sarfatti, and Florine Stettheimer to literature and the visual arts from the late 18th century through the 1930s.
2007: Shabbat Ha Gadol.
2007: In Cedar Rapids, the show “Remnants of Memories” Interpretations of the collage by artists Tom Lee and Elizabeth Levi sponsored by Ginsberg’s Jewelry comes to a close.
2008: Hillel receives a $10.7 million grant, from the Jim Joseph Foundation which the college oriented organization says is the largest in its history. The grant will be disbursed over five years and enable Hillel to engage an additional 30,000 students, according to a news release. Hillel intends to use the funds to place Jewish educators on 10 new campuses as part of its Experiential Educator Exemplar program. The grant also will go to support the Campus Entrepreneurs Initiative, which employs college students to engage their peers in Jewish life.
2008: In New York, The Center for Jewish History presents a lecture by Dr. Atina Grossman entitled “Close Encounters: Jews and Germans in Occupied Germany during which she will discuss the story of the "close encounters" in Allied occupied Germany between Jewish survivors of the Nazi Final Solution who found themselves on "cursed German soil" after the German surrender, and the defeated Germans with whom they continually interacted.
2008: End of Women’s History Month.
2008: In Vancouver, B.C., the Vancouver Jewish Film Festival presents a screening of “Samuel Bak: Painter of Questions.” “In 2001, on the occasion of a retrospective exhibit of his work, painter Samuel Bak returned to his hometown of Vilna (now Vilnius, Lithuania). There, he walked the streets of the Vilna ghetto where he was interned with his parents during the Holocaust and visited the nearby forest where his father and grandparents were murdered. Amongst the tall trees of the Ponari forest, Samuel Bak's life came full circle. This documentary explores Bak's work and life through the lens of his childhood experiences. Born in 1933 in Vilna, Poland, young Samuel was declared a child prodigy. The happiness of his childhood came to an end, however, the day his family was marched into the Jewish Ghetto, changing his life and his artistic vision forever. Saved from the death camps by his father, the miracle of his survival became and still is a recurring theme in his art. Insightful interviews with the artist, Holocaust scholar Lawrence Langer, and Pucker Gallery director Bernard Pucker explore the unique and powerful visual vocabulary and iconography of Bak's work, which is held in museums, galleries, and collections worldwide. "Ignited by haunting images from his memories of the horror of the Holocaust, Bak’s work reflects not just the fragility of human existence but also the triumph of the human spirit in the face of atrocity. The imagery in his paintings—from discarded and distorted teddy bears to his immensely moving self-portrait, in which a wide-eyed boy emerges from a burlap sack—allows viewers to travel in both time and state of mind to places far beyond the Holocaust."
2008: “New Jerusalem: The Interrogation of Baruch de Spinoza at Talmud Torah Congregation: Amsterdam, July 27, 1656” was among the nominees for the 23rd annual Lucille Lortel Awards, celebrating excellence in Off-Broadway theatre.
2008(24th of Adar II, 5768): Rabbi Herbert A. Friedman, a dominant figure in American Jewish philanthropy during Israel’s formative years, passed away at his New York home at the age of 89. He succumbed after a prolonged period of illness, according to his wife, Francine. Friedman served for nearly two decades, from 1954 to 1971, as the chief executive officer of the United Jewish Appeal, the central American Jewish fundraising network supporting Israel and international Jewish relief. The UJA is a precursor organization to today’s United Jewish Communities. As the UJA’s executive vice chairman, Friedman oversaw the raising of hundreds of millions of dollars for the Jewish state during its critical early years, when American Jewish philanthropy was a vital lifeline. He created several key programs that survive to this day and help to define the Jewish-federated philanthropic system, including solidarity missions to Israel, today a staple feature of Jewish fundraising, and the Israel Emergency Fund. Another was the UJA Young Leadership Cabinet, which anticipated the decline of Jewish ethnic loyalty and worked to create new generations of leadership bound by social and personal ties. Friedman was born in 1918 to immigrant parents in New Haven, Conn., and graduated from Yale University in 1938. After graduation he studied for the rabbinate at New York’s Jewish Institute of Religion under Stephen S. Wise, the legendary Reform rabbi and Zionist leader. He served for several years as a pulpit rabbi in Denver but left in 1943 to join the U.S. Army as a chaplain in the European Theater. In the years immediately following World War II, while assisting Holocaust survivors in displaced persons camps in Germany, Friedman was recruited by future Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion to work with the Haganah, the underground Jewish paramilitary force in Palestine. He continued to work with survivors, getting them visas and assisting the clandestine immigration of Jews to Palestine, known as Aliyah Bet. He was later decorated by the State of Israel for his service. In 1947, he returned to the United States and went to work for the UJA, becoming chief executive in 1954. A charismatic leader, he became a larger-than-life figure, consulted by prime ministers, popes and presidents. UJA annual revenues rose during his tenure to $450 million from $50 million, according to UJC. Friedman stepped down as chief executive in 1974, but stayed with the organization until 1982.In 1985, Friedman began a second career as president and co-founder, with retailer Leslie Wexner, of the Wexner Heritage Foundation, which cultivates Jewish leadership through intensive adult education programs.In 2001, he published a memoir, “Roots of the Future,” about his life and adventures. A close colleague in philanthropic work, former UJA lay president Herschel Blumberg, described him as a self-effacing leader utterly devoted to the mission. “He didn’t just talk about himself, even though he did have a very impressive history, both during and following the Second World War,” Blumberg said. Friedman, Blumberg added, was “a quiet and honest” man who taught, above all else, “that we have to have determination in what we’re doing, and convey the impact of what we’re doing.”
2009(6th of Nisan, 5769): Ruth Fredman Cernea, 74, a cultural anthropologist who wrote on topics that included the Jews of Myanmar and the annual mock debate at the University of Chicago on the respective merits of Jewish holiday foods such as latkes and hamantaschen, died today of pancreatic cancer at her son's home in Coral Gables, Fla. She was a Bethesda resident. Dr. Cernea dedicated her scholarly career to the study and interpretation of Jewish culture and symbols. Her books included "The Passover Seder" (1992), an anthropological analysis of the Passover holiday and ritual; and "Cosmopolitans at Home: The Sephardic Jews of Washington, D.C." (1982), the product of five years of research among Jewish immigrants from North Africa living in Washington. "The Great Latke Hamantash Debate" (2006) is a collection of "scholarly" presentations on behalf of the latke, the potato pancake traditionally served during Hanukkah, and the hamantasch, the triangular filled sweet pastry associated with Purim. The annual event grew out of a street corner debate one night shortly after World War II involving a rabbi, an anthropologist and a historian in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. Unable to reach agreement, the rabbi suggested opening the question to eminences of the nearby University of Chicago. The mock debate continues, drawing more than a thousand spectators every year to hear renowned scholars, university presidents and Nobel laureates offer exquisitely ridiculous arguments in favor of their favorite kosher holiday cuisine. "Jews have always been able to use humor to lighten the load," Dr. Cernea told the Chicago Tribune in 2005. "Jewish humor is not silly, but it is absurd absurdity. It is the opposite of deep seriousness. In Jewish thought absurdity and humor is particularly an antidote to seriousness. . . . It could only happen at a place that is deeply serious." Dr. Cernea was on her second honeymoon in 1987 when she discovered a little-known Jewish community in Myanmar (Burma) and the country's only synagogue, the historic Musmeah Yeshua Synagogue in Yangon (formerly Rangoon). Her discovery spurred an enduring interest in the Jewish communities of the former British colonies of South and Southeast Asia. More than 20 years of research went into her book "Almost Englishmen: Baghdadi Jews in British Burma" (2007). She was born Ruth Gruber in Philadelphia and received a bachelor's degree in English literature in 1956 and a doctorate in cultural anthropology in 1982, both from Temple University. She moved to Montgomery County in 1977. From 1982 to 1996, she served as director of research and publications for the Hillel Foundation and edited several annual editions of the "Hillel Guide to Jewish Life on Campus." She lectured at a number of universities and institutions. She was a former president of the Washington Association of Professional Anthropologists.
2009: Yeshiva University hosts the the Israel and India International Conference which features the theme "A Relationship Comes of Age." Presenters include Nathan Katz (Florida International University), Amit Kapoor (Management Development Institute, India), Efraim Inbar (Bar-Ilan University), Shlomo Mor-Yosef (Hadassah Medical Organization), Maina Chawla Sing (University of Delhi), P R Kumaraswamy (Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi), Gadi Ariav (Tel Aviv University).
2009: Gottschalks, a chain of department stores that was founded by German Jewish immigrant Emil Gottschalk in 1904, “announced it would liquidate its remaining stores.”
2010(16th of Nisan, 5770): First Day of the Omer; Second Day of Pesach
2010: An exhibition presented by the American Jewish Historical Society entitled “Pages from a Performing Life: The Scrapbooks of Molly Picon” featuring the 22 scrapbooks keep by Molly Picon and her husband Jacob Kalish chronicling their extraordinary 50-year career, is scheduled to come to an end.
2010(16th of Nisan, 5770): Steven Zilberman died while serving his country. “Miroslav Zilberman, a Navy pilot known to his friends as Steven, moved with his parents from Ukraine to Columbus, Ohio, in the early 1990s. His parents, Anna and Boris, did not want their son to be forced into military service in their native land. AP reports describe Zilberman as grandson of Gregory Sokolov, a major in the Soviet Army in World War II. Zilberman decided to follow his grandfather’s footsteps and joined the Navy after graduating from Bexley High School in 1997. He went on to graduate from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., where he majored in computer science. Zilberman’s plane, an E-2C Hawkeye, was returning to the carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower following a mission supporting operations in Afghanistan when the plane experienced a malfunction. Zilberman ordered his crew mates to eject before going down with the plane into the North Arabian Sea.”
2011: Yosef Begun a former Soviet Prisoner of Conscience is scheduled to speak at noon today in Washington, DC.
2011: “The Army of Crime” and “Hidden Children” are two of the films scheduled to be shown at the Westchester Jewish Film Festival.
2011: “The Human Resources Manager” is one of the films scheduled to be shown at the Hartford Jewish Film Festival
Created, Compiled and Edited by Mitchell A. Levin Cedar Rapids, IA melech3@mchsi.com
Copyright; March, 2011; Mitchell A. Levin
0 comments:
Post a Comment