This Day, August 1, In Jewish History

August 1 In Jewish History

30 BCE: Mark Antony died. Following the victory of Octavian and Antony over those who had murdered Julius Caesar, Antony became ruler of the Eastern half of the Roman Empire. Antony did name Herod as ruler of Judaea. But when his lover Cleopatra let it be known that she wished to recreate the Ptolomey rule over the area, Antony patially reversed himself by giving the Queen Jericho and numerous other towns in Judaea. None of this had anything to do with Antony’s feelings about the Jews but rather reflected his passion for Cleopatra. In the end none of this matter since Octavian defeated Antony and control of the Jews passed to the man who became Caesar Augustus.

10 BCE: Birthdate of Claudius 4th Roman emperor. Claudius reigned from 41 through 54. Regardless of how the PBS television series portrayed, for a Roman Emperor, Claudius was a plus for the Jews of his time. He repealed the anti-Jewish edicts of his predecessors. He held the Samaritans responsible for the attacks on Jews in Judea and befriended the Jewish King, Agrippa. At one time he did exclude Jews from the city of Rome. But this appears to have been a matter of dealing with civil unrest sparked the early Christians living in the imperial city.

388: The synagogue located on the Euphrates in Callinicum was looted and burned by Church officials. St. Ambrose (one of the four Latin doctors of the Catholic Church) defended the action. He reprimanded Theodosius the Great for ordering the local Bishop to pay restitution, even though expropriation was illegal under Roman law. St. Ambrose offered to burn the synagogue in Milan on his own.

527: Justinian I also known as Justinian the Great becomes the Byzantine Emperor. For gentiles, Justinian might be considered “Great” but he was an enemy of the Jews. Justinian’s celebrated code contains the following about his policy towards his Jewish subjects. “They shall enjoy no honors. Their status shall reflect the baseness which in their souls they have elected and desired.” “The principle of servitus Judaeorum (‘servitude of the Jews’) was established, and the hitherto uneven pattern of persecution was systemized for a Christian civilization march towards its age of faith.” Justinian banned the recitation of the Shema because its declaration of the Oness of God was at odds with the Trinity. In response to demands of his Bishops, Justinian banned the public reading of the Torah. He also forbad the observance of Passover in the years when it preceded Easter on the calendar.

1137: King Louis VI passed away and is succeed by his Louis VII who will launch the Second Crusade. Louis VII’s reign was not “Jew friendly.” Following the logic of the time that it made no sense to go to Palestine to fight those holding on to the Christian Holy Sites and leave the defilers of Christianity at home alone, in 1144 Louis VII would expel all the Jews who had converted to Christianity and then returned to Judaism. In 1171 the first Blood Libel in France took place in Blois.

1291: The Swiss Confederation is formed with the signature of the Federal Charter. The original Jews settled in what is now Switzerland during the days of the Roman Empire. Records of the Jewish community officially date back to the 13th century, with Jews having settled in Basel in 1213, seventy years before the confederation was formed. Jews from France and Germany settled in Bern by 1259, St. Gall in 1268, Zurich in 1273, Schaffhausen, Diessenhofen, and Luzerne in 1299. But anti-Semitism is almost as old as the confederation itself since in1294 in when many Jews living in Berne of the city were executed and the survivors expelled under the pretext of the murder of a Christian boy.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/swiss.html

1298: Although assisted by humane Christian citizens, the Jews of Nuremberg were overpowered and butchered today. Among the victims was Mordecai ben Hillel, a pupil of Jehiel ben Asher, with his wife and children.

1626: Birthdate of Sabbatai Zevi, the most famous the False Messiahs.

1670: As a result of a proclamation by the Emperor, as of today, all the Jews had left Vienna.

1789: The British Fleet under Nelson defeats the French Fleet in the Battle of the Nile. Nelson’s victory left the British in control of the Mediterranean. Napoleon’s army had already landed before the battle. Although the French leader would score victories in Egypt and Syria, crossing through Eretz Israel, his victories would mean little since the French army could not be sustained. Among the lesser known consequences was the end of promises Napoleon had made during the siege at Acre to create a Jewish homeland.

1833: On a second reading a bill designed to free Jews from all civil disabilities which would open the world of politics to them, was defeated.

1852: This afternoon, "the new Jewish Synagogue in Eighth-street, between North First and North Second-streets, was dedicated by appropriate ceremonies of the Jewish religion. There were Hebrew chants" and lectures by Rabbi, Max Lilienthal, Rabbi Samuel M. Isaacs and Rabbi Morris Raphall. Dr. Barnard officiated as Rabbi to the congregation. The Synagogue is to be known as the "House of Israel." "There were many Gentiles present to view the ceremonies."

1859: The Report of Sir Moses Montefiore to the London Committee of Deputies of the British Jews on the subject of his mission to Rome in the Mortara Case was published today. While Sir Moses was thankful for those who assisted in him arranging meeting with Vatican officials, the Church refused to acknowledge any error in the case. The conversion stands and the Jewish child stolen from his parents will be raised as a Catholic.

1859: An editorial in the New York Times, expresses disappointment at Rome’s refusal to yield on the issues in the “Mortara Case” while expressing relief “that such an enormity as the abduction of the Mortara child cannot be repeated even by Rome.” The Times also points out the horrible conditions under which the Jews of Austria, a patron and protector of the Pope, are living. “The case of the Israelites…bad as it is in Rome, is still worse in Austria.” Jews are restricted in the vocations they may pursue and are banned from “many of the higher vocations of trade.” They are limited in their right to move to different parts of the empire and they need a special license if they want to leave the country altogether. In some parts of the empire, there is a limit on the number of Jewish marriages “so that a young man must await the death of his parent before he can enter the state of matrimony. This hideous and demoralizing law is but one of the many horrors which Austrian persecution has designed for the Israelites living in Austria, and who are kept by the brutal system, in a state of ignorance which the condition of Jewish populations in free countries proves to abnormal with that portion of the human family.” [All of this will change with a stroke of a pen after Austria loses its war with Prussia and is forced to reorganize as the Austro-Hungarian Empire.]

1865(9th of Av, 5625): Tisha B'Av

1865: The New York Times reported that “the Israelites in this city and throughout the world solemnized in sorrow and in sadness, in tears and in lamentation, in fasting and in prayer, the annual fast of Ab, founded on the destruction of the Temple, and the overthrow of the national government. Although nearly 2,300 years have elapsed since the first Temple was destroyed, and eighteen centuries since the construction of the second Temple, both occurrences taking place on the same day of the month, the fast is still continued from Monday evening to Tuesday night, in accordance with the Jewish ritual, and in consonance with Israelitish feeling. The fast is inaugurated with reciting the lamentations of Jeremiah, and, after the morning service, several hours are employed in the synagogues in chanting in plaintive tones the compositions of the saints of antiquity, and imploring the God of Israel to remove the rod of chastisement from Israel, and again to resume the light of other days, by the reestablishment of their Temple and restoration of their government to its original splendor.”

1870: Birthdate of Rabbi Tuvia Geffen who gained fame as “The Coca Cola Rabbi.”

1870: Benjamin Nathan, the prominent Jewish New York businessman who was murdered in his own home, was buried today at the Jewish Cemetery, Shearith Israel at Cypress Hill. His brother-in-law, Rabbi J.J. Lyons had officiated at funeral that was held at the deceased’s resident.

1873: It was reported today that the last person to see ten year old John Henry Lance was “a Jew peddler in Williamsburg.”

1875: “The Jews of Italy,” an article published today described the conditions of the Jews living in this newly reunited nation. It focused on the deplorable conditions of many of the Jews living in the old ghetto of Rome along the Tiber, the improved condition of Jews living outside of the capital and the annual ceremony at St. John the Lateran set aside to baptize any Jew who has converted during the past 12 months. However, no Jew has participated in the ceremony in the last twenty years, despite the best efforts of the Church to gain converts.

1876: Colorado is admitted as the 38th U.S. state. The largest number of Jews began arriving in Colorado as part of the gold rush activities in 1859. Jews helped supply the miners in many of the camps that later became small towns throughout the state. Hyman and Fred Salomon, two Jewish brothers from Prussia, were leading members of the Denver community by the time statehood was declared. In addition to their business ventures, they helped organize the Colorado Pioneer Society, the Denver Public Library and the Denver B’nai Brit Lodge.

1879: As reported in the Jewish Messenger, "...About twenty, mostly young men, have formed themselves into a congregation under the name of 'Orach Chaim', Path of Life, their objective being to hold Divine service every day, morning and evening, as well as on Sabbath and holidays on strict orthodox principles, as it has been handed down to them by their fathers."

1885: A well attended memorial service in honor of the late Sir Moses Montefiore, who was buried on Friday in Ramsgate, England, was held today at the Montefiore Home for Chronic Invalids, on the corner of Eighty-fourth-street and Avenue A in New York.

1891: Birthdate of Eliyahu Lulu, who would gain fame as a member of the First Knesset under the name of Eliyahu Hacarmeli.

1903: Birthdate of Helena Nordheim, one of five Jewish members of the Dutch ladies’ gymnastics team, which won the Olympic title in Amsterdam in 1928. Forty years later, Helena Kloot- Nordheim, her husband Abraham and her 10-year old daughter Rebecca were gassed at Sobibor.

1911: Jews in Peoria, Illinois contribute one thousand dollars to Jews in Turkey suffering from the aftermath of major fires in that country.

1914: Germany declared war on Russia in WW I. The Jews of German fought valiantly for the Kaiser in defense of the Fatherland. But the Iron Crosses they earned would not save them or their progeny from the "Austrian Corporal’s Final Solution." According to Hitler’s Jewish Soldiers by Bryan Rigg, “About 10,000 volunteered for duty, and over 100,000 out of a total German-Jewish population of 550,000 served during World War One. Some 78% saw front-line duty, 12,000 died in battle, over 30,000 received decorations, and 19,000 were promoted. Approximately 2,000 Jews became military officers and 1,200 became medical officers.”

1918: Joseph Schlossberg, General Secretary Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America and Abraham Epstein, President Workmen's Circle were among the leaders of a meeting of a Conference of Trade Unions, Branches of the Workmen's Circle, and other Progressive Labor Organizations of Greater New York scheduled to be held be held in Webster Hall, 119 East 11th Street, for the purpose of organizing the workers into a permanent central body for aiding all persons prosecuted who are in need of help, and of arousing public opinion against the further suppression of constitutional rights and liberties. The Conference will be held under the auspices of the Liberty Defense Union, and has been endorsed by the United Hebrews Trades and the National Executive Committee of the Workmen's Circle.

1919: Hungary limited the number of Jews in commerce, law, medicine, and banking. The new definition of a Jew is someone who converted after August 1, 1919. An estimated 5,000 Jews converted to Christianity during the weeks before the law went into effect.

1919(5th of Av, 5679): Oscar Hammerstein I passed away. Born in 1847 he was a businessman, theater impresario and composer in New York City. His passion for opera led him to open several opera houses, and he rekindled opera's popularity in America. He was the grandfather of lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II.

1924: Birthdate of Georges Charpak, Ukrainian-born French physicist who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1992.

1925: The (Turkish) Palestine Citizenship Ordinance went into effect. It said that any "Turkish subject" in Palestine as of August 1, 1925 shall become a Palestinian citizen, unless he opts for Turkish nationality, or nationality of another state.

1926: At Constantinople it was announced that the Jews of Turkey formally renounced their rights as minorities. They would for now on be considered full citizens with equal rights as all citizens have.

1926(21st of Av, 5686): Israel Zangwill passed away. The Russian born, Anglo-Jewish author, Zionist and champion of social justice is best known for two of his works - a novel entitled Children of the Ghetto: A Study of a Peculiar People a highly successful play entitled The Melting Pot. Among those who saw and enjoyed this was President Theodore Roosevelt.

1931: Birthdate of Elliott Charles Adnopoz, who became famous as Ramblin' Jack Elliott

1932: Birthdate of Meir Kahane, founder of the Jewish Defense League.

1933: The Deutsche Modeamt, a newly-formed Nazi fashion office, announces that Jewish firms will not be permitted to exhibit in the exhibition of men's and women's wear.

1933: Fritz Rosenfelder, leader and founder of the sports club at Saanstaat, Wurtenberg, commits suicide because he was expelled from the club; in a final letter to his former club colleagues, he wrote: "I am leaving with no hatred. My only wish is that Germany should be restored to reason . . . How more beautifully could I have given my life for my Fatherland."

1933: The Commissariat for Medical Associations issues a decree prohibiting non-Jewish physicians from having any professional contact with Jewish physicians; non-Jewish medical
men must not serve as consultants, and must not treat patients recommended to them by Jewish physicians.

1933: The Dutch Society of Sculptors and Artists responds to an appeal on behalf of Jewish refugees from Germany by donating many objects of art which will be used in a lottery sanctioned by the Government.

1936: The report of the Peel Commission was discussed today in Geneva, home of the League of Nations. Poland, Romania and other East European countries, debating the Peel Report on the proposed partition of Palestine, demanded that Great Britain continue to fulfill her obligations under the Mandate. The Arab leadership argued that the rights of the people of Palestine could not be contested and that any partition scheme was contrary to Articles 20 and 31 of the Covenant of the League of Nations. In a contradiction of facts the Arabs did not deny the rights of the Jewish minority in Palestine, and were even prepared to furnish guarantees in this respect, but they unanimously opposed the country's partition and demanded immediate, total independence. But part of the rights of the Jewish community under the terms of the Balfour Declaration and the Mandate was to a Jewish Homeland, not citizenship in an Arab country. In South Africa General J.C. Smuts, vice premier and minister of justice, expressed his grave misgivings about the partition scheme in general, and the smallness of the proposed Jewish state in particular. A total rejection of the partition was also the subject of letters written by Colonel J.C. Wedgwood, MP (Member of Parliament), and addressed to the British and world press.

1936: Birthdate of Leonard Steinberg, Baron Steinberg of Belfast, founder of Stanley Leisure Ltd and found and first President of the Northern Ireland Friends of Israel

1940: The Nazis begin the expulsion of the Jewish population from Cracow, Poland. One-third would be sent to Warsaw and other Polish towns.1942: The first "reliable report" of the Nazi plan to murder all the Jews reached the West. The U.S. State Department suppressed the report for several weeks, until Jews living in the United States heard about the report from other sources.

1941: Heydrich informed Himmler, “that in the future there will be no more Jews in the annexed Eastern Territories." Every day in every village and town, Jews would be hunted down, molested, tortured, and executed.

1941(8th of Av, 5701): Another 1,000 Jews were shot in the city of Kishenev.

1941: The Nazis established The Bialystok Ghetto.

1942 (18th of Av, 5702) Rabbi Shlomo Chanoch Rabinowicz, last Rebbe of the Radomsk dynasty, educator, a director of the Kesser Torah organization, member of the religious council in the Warsaw ghetto was murdered with his family in the Warsaw ghetto

1942: Benjamin Sagalowitz, press secretary of the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities phoned Gerhard Riegner with information from an unimpeachable source, a non-Jewish German industrialist, that Hitler had decided to have all European Jews exterminated by means of poison gas by the end of the year.

1944: Anne Frank writes the last entry in her diary.

1944: Fourteen months after the Warsaw Ghetto, the Polish underground rises against the Nazis in Warsaw. Jewish fighters came of hiding to participate in the fight. However, those who could not come to the aide of the Jews in 1943 would now find out what it felt like. The Soviet Army waited outside the city and did not come to their aid. Instead, they let the Nazis slaughter the Poles and then they entered the city as liberating heroes

1945: Birthdate of Douglas Dean Osheroff, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1996. His father was Jewish and his mother was Lithuanian.

1946(4th of Av, 5706): In Miskol, Hungry industrial workers stage a pogrom. Two Jews are lynched. This is an example of the post-war anti-Semitic violence that led approximately 4,000 Jews to leave Hungary for Palestine during the next two years.

1956: The Salk Vaccine, created by Dr. Jonas Salk, becomes available to the American public.

1965: Birthdate of English stage and film director Sam Mendes. His father was from Trinidad and his mother was an English Jew.

1970: Ensio P.H. Siilasvuo of Finland assumes the role of Chief of Staff United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO)

1979: Following her graduation from rabbinical college in Philadelphia, Linda Joy Holtzman was appointed spiritual leader of the Conservative Beth Israel congregation in Coatesville,
Pennsylvania, making her the first female rabbi to head a Jewish congregation in America.

1980: Egypt said today that it would not suspend the talks with Israel on autonomy for the occupied areas nor would it recall its Ambassador from Israel in response to the passage of an Israeli law formalizing the annexation of Jerusalem.

1980: Two days after the Knesset passed the Jerusalem Law, an article entitled “Jerusalem Storm Just One More in a Tortured History” which traced the history of the city from ancient times to the period following the Six Days War was published. The article includes the following: “During the war that followed Israel’s independence in 1948, Jordan seized the eastern sector of Jerusalem…and the new state won control of the western sector. The Jordanians evicted all Jews from the Old City; from 1948 to 1967 was off limits to Jews and most of the old synagogues there were destroyed.” (Editor’s note – The author, working for The New York Times, writes about an eastern sector and a western sector of Jerusalem as well as the Old City. The term “East Jerusalem and, its concept as a separate city, is apparently a more recent creation.)

1981(1st of Av, 5741): Rosh Chodesh Av

1981(1st of Av, 5741): Paddy Chayefsky passed away. Born in 1923, Sydney "Paddy" Chayefsky began writing scripts for television during its golden age of drama in the 1950’s. He switched to films where he won three Oscar for writing "Marty", "Hospital" and "Network."

1989: Morton Abramowitz began serving as U.S. Ambassador to Turkey

1991: Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir accepted a formula for peace talks in the Middle East.

2004: The New York Times book section features a review of 'Jerome Robbins': From Stravinsky to the Sharks by Nicholas Fox Weber.

2004: In Aspen, CO, Bernard Marcus, co-founder of Home Depot, Inc. is the headline speaker at United Jewish Communities (UJC) eighth annual Jewish Leadership Forum (JLF)

2004(14th of Av, 5764): Sidney Morgenbesser passed away at the age of 82 from complications of ALS. Morgenbesser was the Emeritus John Dewey Professor of Philosophy at Columbia. He attended JTS and earned a Ph.D. from Penn. He was known for his erudition and his wit. David Shatz of Yeshiva University recounted the story of Morgenbesser chastising a faculty member for hiding his Jewishness: “Oh, I see your model is Icognito, ergo sum.”

2005 (25th of Tammuz, 5765): George Forman, a longtime comptroller of the American Civil Liberties Union, who brought fiscal discipline to a ramshackle organization near bankruptcy in the late 1970s and later helped it develop into a powerful civil liberties conglomerate, died todau at the age of 88. The cause was congestive heart failure, Jamieson said. "During the years of crisis, he was more responsible than any other single person for keeping the program afloat," said Ira Glazer, the executive director of the ACLU from 1978 to 2001. Glazer explained how Mr. Forman juggled the bills and even earned interest on a deficit operational budget, and recalled visits from officials of Chemical Bank who complained that although the organization was moving around millions of dollars, its average balance was $3.79. "He was the chewing gum and rubber bands that held the organization together and made the high intellectual and strategic law possible," Glazer said. When Mr. Forman arrived at the ACLU in 1968, the organization had two lawyers, one part-time media person and no one in charge of administration and finances, fund-raising or development. By the time he retired in the late 1990s, the organization had a $50 million annual income, more than $100 million in assets, and staffed offices in every state. Before joining the ACLU, Mr. Forman was the comptroller of the Noma Corp., a large, diversified holding company. He became unemployed when Noma merged with a predecessor of Gulf and Western. George Forman was born in Manhattan on Feb. 15, 1917. He lived alone in his parents' apartment in the Bronx, where he had cared for them until they died. During World War II, he was an Army officer stationed in Washington, where he fell in love with a woman with whom he had his only daughter but felt he could not marry because she was not Jewish. He graduated magna cum laude from New York University in 1939 and earned a graduate degree in business administration there.

2005: President George W Bush nominated Roland Arnall to become the U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands.

2005: A political essay written by Russian businessman and oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky in his prison cell, titled "Left Turn", was published in Vedomosti, calling for a turn to more social responsible state.

2005 (25th of Tammuz, 5765): Al Aronowitz passed away at the age of 77. He was a pioneering journalist who covered the Beat literary scene and engineered a meeting between Bob Dylan and the Beatles that has passed into rock 'n' roll legend.

2006(7th of Av, 5766): Skirmishes with Hezbollah guerrillas in the southern Lebanese village of Ayta al-Shaab left three soldiers, including an officer, of a Paratrooper Brigade unit dead and at least another 25 wounded. The names of the fallen have been released: St.-Sgt. Yehunatan Einhorn, 22, of Moshav Gimzo; First Sergeant Michael Levine, 21, of Jerusalem; and Lieutenant Ilan Gabbai, 22, of Kiryat Tivon.

2006: A number of Jewish-owned stores in Italy had their doors sealed with glue and the shutters nailed down overnight as a response to Israel’s policies in Lebanon

2007: U.S. President George Bush imposed sanctions on Syria today because of the role the Damascus government has played in creating regional instability.

2007: U.S. Secretary of State Condi Rice arrives in Jerusalem.

2008: Solomon "Momy" Levy completed his term as Mayor of Gibraltar.

2008: Solomon Levy began serving as the Mayor of Gibraltar.

2008: In Falls Church VA (suburban Washington, D.C.), Jewish author Benjamin Rosenbaum reads from and discusses his new collection of SF tales, The Ant King and Other Stories

2009: At Temple Judah, a Triple Header:
1. Shabbat Nachamu
2. Rabbi Todd Thalbum officially takes the pulpit at Temple Judah and reads the Torah portion at his first Cedar Rapids Shabbat Morning Service
3. Raoul Wallenberg Sabbath Annual Observance of Raoul Wallenberg Memorial Day (August 4, 2009) which has been proclaimed by the Governor of Iowa for three years in a row.

2009(11th of Av, 5769): A gunman shot dead two people and wounded at least thirteen others in an attack at a central Tel Aviv gay and lesbian center tonight before fleeing the scene. Israel Police said that the incident at the club on Nahmani Street did not have a terror motive. The two victims were initially identified as a young man and a young woman. Witnesses told Israeli television that the black-clad, masked gunman stormed into the Tel Aviv Gay and Lesbian Association building and opened fire in a basement room where gay teenagers were holding a weekly support group. Most of the casualties were minors, a police spokesman said, adding that the assailant was believed to have used an automatic weapon such as an M-16 rifle. Channel 10 television reported that a police manhunt for the gunman was underway in the city. The channel also said that police had closed all the gay clubs in the area following the attack. Witnesses said the gunman entered the center at around 11 P.M. and opened fire in all directions

2010: The Skirball Cultural Center show "Monsters and Miracles: A Journey through Jewish Picture Books," is scheduled to come to a close today.

2010: "Modern Art, Sacred Space: Motherwell, Ferber, and Gottlieb" is scheduled to have its final showing at the Jewish Museum,in New York.

2010: President Shimon Peres is scheduled to travel to Egypt today for a meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. The two are expected to meet behind closed doors to discuss advancing diplomatic efforts between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. They are also expected to discuss cooperation between Israel and Egypt.

2010: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including Telling Times: Writing and Living, 1954-2008 by Nadine Gordimer, Running Commentary: The Contentious Magazine That Transformed the Jewish Left Into the Neoconservative Right by Benjamin Balint, Norman Podhoretz: A Biography by Thomas L. Jeffers, High Financer: The Lives and Time of Siegmund Warburg by Niall Ferguson and Red Hook Road by Ayelet Waldman

2010: The Jewish Community Center in Omaha welcomed nearly 1,000 young Jewish athletes for an Olympic-style competition that will run through August 6. This will be the third time in 19 years that the Maccabi Games have been held at the Jewish Community Center.

2010(21 Av, 5770): Reginald Levy, who as captain of a hijacked Belgian airliner in 1972 was hailed as a hero for enabling Israeli commandos to storm the plane and rescue all 100 passengers and crew members, died at a hospital near his home in Dover, England. He was 88. The cause was a heart attack, his daughter Linda Lipschitz said. Sabena Flight 571 from Brussels to Tel Aviv was 20 minutes out of Vienna on May 8, 1972, when four Arabs waving pistols rushed the cockpit. “As you can see,” Captain Levy calmly told the 90 passengers, “we have friends aboard.” The “friends” were members of Black September, a terrorist organization that grew out of the Palestinian defeat in the 1970 Jordanian civil war and was responsible for the killing of 11 members of the Israeli team at the Munich Olympics four months after the hijacking. The hijackers — two men and two women — ordered Captain Levy to land at Lydda Airport (later Ben-Gurion International Airport), where they threatened to blow up the plane unless 317 Palestinian guerrillas were released from Israeli prisons. Within an hour of the radio message from Captain Levy reporting the hijacking, Israel’s defense minister, Moshe Dayan, was at the airport to deal with the crisis. After dark, Israeli saboteurs crept under the parked plane, deflated the tires and disconnected hydraulic equipment. At the hijackers’ request, International Red Cross teams were summoned to carry messages between the plane and Mr. Dayan. After presenting their demands, the hijackers were alarmed to discover that they could not take off again. Captain Levy started a conversation to calm them down, and kept on chatting through the night. “I talked about everything under the sun,” he said later, “from navigation to sex.” The next morning, to demonstrate their intentions, the hijackers sent Captain Levy to the terminal with a sample of the explosives they had on board. He told the Israelis much more, describing the hijackers, their positions and the black bags in which they were carrying explosives. He also told them, significantly, that there were no seats blocking the emergency doors. Mr. Dayan promised to repair the plane and bring the Palestinian prisoners to the airport. Bogus prisoners were shown to the hijackers from a distance, and another plane was taken out to a runway, supposedly to fly them to Cairo. Twenty-one hours after Captain Levy’s plane had been hijacked, two trucks carrying 18 men in the white overalls of mechanics drove up to the jetliner. They milled about the plane, supposedly checking the tires and other equipment. Suddenly they tore open the emergency exits above the wings and opened fire inside the cabin. The fusillade from the men in overalls — in reality members of the elite commando unit Sayeret Matkal — ended within 90 seconds. The commandos were led by Ehud Barak, now Israel’s defense minister, and among them was Benjamin Netanyahu, now the prime minister. The two male hijackers, who had returned fire, were killed. Another hijacker, a Jordanian woman, was not injured. The fourth, also a woman, was seriously wounded, as were several passengers. Tearful passengers and crew members slid off the wings and were bused to a terminal into the arms of ecstatic relatives. Several days later, Prime Minister Golda Meir held a dinner for those involved in the rescue. She kissed Captain Levy and cried, “We love you.” To criticism that the operation had endangered innocent people, she said, “When blackmail like this succeeds, it only leads to more blackmail.” Reginald Levy was born in Blackpool, England, on May 8, 1922, the son of Cyril and Ann Constant Levy. The hijacking took place on his 50th birthday. His wife, Dora Shawcross Levy, was on board; they were planning to celebrate in Tel Aviv. Captain Levy joined the Royal Air Force when he was 18, flew bombing missions over Germany and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross in 1944. After the war, he took part in the Berlin airlift and, in 1952, joined Sabena. He retired in 1982. In 2007, Eliezer Sacks, one of the Israeli commandos, arrived at the offices of The Jerusalem Post and handed Ms. Lipschitz — then an editorial assistant at the paper — the blue Sabena captain’s cap that her father had left on the plane. He gave her a letter he had written to Captain Levy. “I want to apologize for the long time — 35 years — that I forgot to give your hat back,” it said. “I hope the hat will find its way back to your head.” It did.

2011: A screening of “Bobby Fischer Against the World,” Liz Garbus’s documentary that takes us on Fischer’s journey from Jewish child prodigy to world chess master to virulent anti-Semite, is scheduled to be shown at the San Francisco Jewish Festival.

2011(1st day of Av, 5771): Rosh Chodesh Av

Created and Edited by Mitchell Levin Cedar Rapids, IA melech3@mchsi.com

Copyright; July, 2011; Mitchell A. Levin