This Day, November 30, In Jewish History

November 30 In Jewish History

1215: The Fourth Lateran Council which had been led by Innocent III came a close. The Fourth Lateran Council made first official use of the term "transubstantiation," with reference to the Eucharist (Lord's Supper). The adoption of this concept would lead to anti-Semitic outbreaks based on charges that Jews had desecrated the Host i.e. the wafer that was seen as being the body of Christ.

1631(5932): Rabbi Samuel Eliezer ben Judah ha-levi Edels passed away. Born in Cracow in 1555, Edels is known by the acronym Maharsha. He was known as outstanding Talmudist and master of dialectics whose commentaries were of such value that they were included in most editions of the Talmud. Edels was a man of character as well as erudition. “He attacked the misuse of rabbinic authority and the attempt made by wealthy individuals to monopolize communal offices.”

1748(9th of Kislev, 5509): Mordecai ben Jacob Ẓahalon, a doctor and rabbi who was part of a famous Sephardic family, passed away today in Ferrara, Italy. Among his many books were Megillat Naharot," describing the miraculous rescue of the Jewish community of Ferrara from the inundation that occurred in 1707

1782: In Paris, representatives from the United States and the Kingdom of Great Britain sign preliminary peace articles (later formalized as the 1783 Treaty of Paris).

1790: Georgia Governor, Edward Telfair granted to Levy Sheftall, Cushman Pollock, Joseph Abrahams, Mordecai Sheftall, Abraham de Pas, Emanuel de la Motta, and their successors a charter of incorporation wherein they were declared to be "a body incorporate by the name and style of the 'Parnass and Adjuntas of the Mickve Israel at Savannah.'" This charter is still in the hands of the congregation and it is the document under which it operates to this day.

1803: In New Orleans, Louisiana, Spanish representatives officially transfer the Louisiana Territory to a French representative. Just 20 days later, France transfers the same land to the United States as the Louisiana Purchase.

1805: In Chatham, Kent, England, Lazarus Magnus and Sarah Moses gave birth to Jacob Magnus.

1854: Between 300 and 400 people danced to the music of Dodsworth’s Band at the Hebrew Young Men’s Ball held in the New York City’s Chinese Assembly Rooms. Procedes from tonight’s event will be be given to the Ladies’ Hebrew Benevolent Society.

1856(3rd of Kislev, 5617): Marcus Cone, a Jew who had been living in New York, passed away today in Abbersweiler, Germany, the city where he was born.

1856: The Manchester Guardian reported a "Great Fire" had taken place in Constantinople where 600 homes were destroyed, and another devastated Adrianople.

1858: Today’s City Intelligence column reported that the recent stories about the arrest of three Jews for their role in selling lottery tickets were in error. At least one of those arrested was identified as being a rabbi when in fact he made no claim to being a clergyman. Apparently he is the leader of a “Bet Hamidrash” or House of Instruction which is attended by recently arrived poor immigrant Russian Jews who speak little or no English. In Europe, the sale of lottery tickets is legal and apparently the immigrants had no reason to think that this was not the case in the United States. Those preparing the original report were unaware of the fact that the term “Reb” merely implies that one is a “master” or an “instructor” and not a clergyman.

1870: E.B. Hart delivered the opening remarks at the Hebrew Charity Fair. The lavish event was held to raise funds for the Mount Sinai Hospital and the Hebrew Orphan Asylum. In his speech Governor Hoffman of New York said praised both institutions saying that the latter was indeed populated primarily by Jewish children but that the former served all members of the community, regardless of their religion.

1873: The Jewish Maternity Association, originally known as Ezrath Nashim (Helping Women) was founded in Philadelphia, PA

1874: Birthdate of Sir Winston Churchill, the British statesman, orator and author who served as prime minister during World War II. Churchill’s official biographer was the famous Jewish historian Martin Gilbert. Churchill often spoke of his support for a Jewish homeland. During the war, his government studiously supported the White Paper which effectively banned Jewish immigration to Palestine. Churchill’s supporters explained this as being a wartime necessity meant to ensure Arab support for the Allied cause. Even if one accepts this argument, it does not explain Churchill’s support for the ban on Jewish immigration after the Nazis had surrendered in May of 1945. For more about Churchill and his relationship with the Jewish people, see Churchill and the Jews by Martin Gilbert. Like all off Gilbert’s work it is well researched and highly readable.

1876: Rabbi Einhorn is scheduled to deliver the sermon at Temple Bethel’s Thanksgiving Services the first of which will be held at 10 AM followed by a second service at 11 AM.

1876: Rabbi Gottheil will deliver the sermon at this afternoon’s Centennial Thanksgiving Service at Temple Emanu-El. The service will include musical program by the congregation’s choir and a reading of the President’s Thanksgiving Proclamation.

1876: In Philadelphia, a ceremony was held today unveiling and dedicating a monument symbolic of Religious Liberty that was built with contribution from member of B’nai Brith from throughout the United States.

1876: It was reported today that the Ladies of the Forty-fourth Street Synagogue’s Hebrew Benevolent Society are seeking donations of goods and money for the fair they are holding during the last two weeks of December.

1878: Solomon A. Levy and Dilah Horner Levy gave birth to Henry Horner, the first Jewish governor of Illionis.

1879: C.J. Fishel of Mellis & Fishel read the opening prayer at the funeral of S.L. Lewis which was the first Jewish funeral to be held in the Sandwich Islands which we know as Hawaii.

1893: Birthdate of author I.J. Singer. Israel Joshua Singer was the older brother of Isaac Bashevis Singer. Born in Poland, Singer gained fame as Yiddish writer. He was the Polish correspondent for The Jewish Daily Forward. He came to the United States in 1934.” Singer’s epic masterpiece Di Bruder Ashkenazi (The Brothers Ashkenazi) details Jewish industrial development before World War I.”

1895: Birthdate of Samuel Norton "Sam" Gerson, the Ukrainian born Jewish-American wrestler who won a Silver Medal at the 1920 Olympics and helped to organize Philadelphia's Maccabi Sports Club.

1900: Oscar Wilde passed away. The Picture of Dorian Gray, possibly his most famous novel, includes a Jewish character named Isaacs, a theatre manager. The author stresses both his Jewishness and his ugliness describing him as “a hideous Jew,” a “horrid old Jew” who had “greasy ringlets, and an enormous diamond … in the centre of a soiled shirt.”

1910: Lucille Selig married Leo Frank. Selig was the member of an “old” Atlanta Jewish family that had founded the city’s first synagogue. Frank would come to a horrible end when he was lynched for a crime that he did not commit.

1913: Jacob H. Schiff, President of the Montefiore Home, presided at the dedication ceremonies of the new buildings at the institution located at Gun Hill Road and 210th Street, near Jerome Avenue. The ceremonies included services at the synagogue located at the Montefiore Home.

1915: A large gathering of Rumanian Jews held a special memorial service at the Manhattan Lyceum in honor of Dr. Solomon Schechter who had passed away on November 20. While recognizing his leadership and scholarly skills, the Rumanians were also honoring one of their own and voted to name soon to be opened Jewish Home for Convalescents the “Professor Solomon Schechter Memorial.

1917: The Australian Light Horse, part of Allenby’s forces, took the offensive against the Turkish forces blocking the way to Jerusalem, The Aussies captured 200 Turks and the rest fell back toward the City of David.

1917: As victorious British Imperial forces approached Jerusalem, the Turkish governor began to make good on the promise that there were would be no Jews in the city to welcome the British. Forty American Jews living in Jerusalem and several Zionists of Ottoman nationality were expelled from the city. A staff member of the German Consulate in Jerusalem said that the Jews were driven out on foot and beaten like criminals as they made their way towards Jericho.

1917: The Germans captured a British brigade headquarters and ammunition dump at Masnieres and Les Rues Vertes, France. Among those taken prisoners was the Captain Robert Gee, the son of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. Gee managed to escape and organized a party of the brigade staff with which he attacked the enemy, closely followed by two companies of infantry. He cleared the locality and established a defensive flank, then finding an enemy machine-gun still in action, with a revolver in each hand he went forward and captured the gun, killing eight of the crew. He was wounded, but would not have his wound dressed until the defense was organized. Gee was awarded the Victoria Cross for this action.

1924: Birthdate of songwriter and humorist Allan Sherman author of the famous camp song that began, “Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah.”

1926: Birthdate of Andrew V. Schally. Schally is a Polish-born American endocrinologist and co-recipient with Roger Guillemin and Rosalyn Yalow, of the 1977 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. Schally fled Poland with his family in 1939. Schally became a U.S. citizen in 1962. He became senior medical investigator with the Veterans Administration in 1973. He was noted for isolating and synthesizing three hormones that are produced by the region of the brain known as the hypothalamus; these hormones control the activities of other hormone- producing glands. These accomplishments were the synthesis of TRH (thyrotropin-releasing hormone), the isolation and synthesis of LH-RH (luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone), and studies of the action of somatostatin.

1930: At a meeting in London today, Dr. Chaim Weizmann “insisted…that he did not and would not accept the MacDonald Government’s White Paper.” While expressing his displeasure with the White Paper, the Zionist leader “cautioned the Zionists…against taking sides in politics, a reminder obviously directed toward the White-chapel by-election in the East End of London, where it is said the preponderant Jewish vote may make trouble for the Labor candidate.”

1933: Rabbi Jerome D. Folkman, of Temple Beth Israel, delivered the Thanksgiving sermon today at a joint service attended by Jews and Gentiles. The services were held in the First Baptist Church of which the Rev. Carl Winters is pastor. (JTA)

1935: Rosa and Avrom Shlavestein gave birth to their daughter Nina. in Berdichev in the Zhitomir District, USSR (today in Ukraine). Before World War II, Nina’s family lived in Moscow. When Germany invaded the Soviet Union Nina was vacationing in Klintsy in the Bryansk District of the Soviet Union, and was unable to return home because of the invasion. Nina perished during the Holocaust. Her mother Rosa survived and immigrated to Israel. Rosa submitted a Page of Testimony in Yiddish to commemorate her daughter Nina, probably in the 1950s. (As chronicled by Yad Vashem)

1936: Birthdate of Abbie Hoffman.

1936: “An American flag, the gift of Mayor a Guardia of New York, was presented today to the municipality of Tel Aviv by the Maccabee soccer team” which had just returned from a tour of the United States. “The Maccabee also presented a flag of New York Harbor to the new Tel Aviv port in ceremonies at the City Ha, where the athletes were officially welcomed after a parade.

1938: According to Michael Hesemann, Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli – the future Pius XII – wrote a letter today urging Catholic archbishops throughout the world to apply for visas for "non-Aryan Catholics" and Jewish converts to Christianity who wanted to flee Germany

1938: Germany bans Jews from being lawyers

1940: Anti-Jewish laws are established in Tunisia.

1940: After the “Patria incident,” General Wavell, Britain’s top military officer in the Middle East complains vehemently to Sir Anthony Eden protesting the decision to let any Jewish refugees remain in Palestine. He contends that the decision to let 1,900 Jews remain in Palestine will undermine British relations with the Arabs. The Mufti, who is Berlin with Hitler, will be strengthened. Nazi sympathizers in Syria will be encouraged. And fifth-columnist in Egypt will find it easier to gain support for the Germans. At least Wavell was honest. For him as for so many less honest Englishmen (and others) it was all about keeping the Arabs happy.

1941: At the Riga Ghetto, 27,000 Jews were taken for execution by the Nazis.

1941: Jews began to arrive at Theresienstadt from Prague.

1941: Haj Amin, leader of the Palestinians was “ceremoniously received by Hitler.”

1943(3rd of Kislev, 5704): Esther "Etty" Hillesum a young Jewish woman whose letters and diaries, kept between 1941 and 1943 describe life in Amsterdam during the German occupation died at Auschwitz. They were published posthumously in 1981, before being translated into English in 1983.

1943: All nine Palestinian Hebrew newspapers and the German-language daily issued at Tel Aviv re-appeared today after eleven days' suspension. “The suspension resulted from” the “simultaneous uncensored publication” by these papers “of identical accounts with uniform editorial comment on the search carried” out at a kibbutz named Ramat Hakovesh by British forces looking for arms. The search turned violent resulting in the murder of one of the Jewish settlers. The articles in the newspapers had been part of the Jewish response which, among other things, continues to claim the right for Jews to be able to defend themselves.

1943: Italy's Interior Ministry orders the concentration of all Italian Jews in camps.

1944(14th of Kislev, 5705): Anna Dresden-Polak’s husband, Barend, died today Auschwitz. Anna, a member of the Dutch ladies’ gymnastic team that won the Gold Medal at the 1928 Olympics, had been killed the year before at Sobibor along with Eva, her six-year old daughter.

1944: More than 100,000 persons, more than half the population of the city, greeted Dr. Chaim Weizmann when he visited Tel Aviv today for the first time since arriving in Palestine two weeks ago. The demonstration was the greatest welcome ever given to anyone in Tel Aviv. Weizmann responded by saying, “I never imagined my own people could have received me with such spontaneous joy.” When he went to Te Aviv to review 200 soldiers who where were serving in the new Jewish bridged of the British Army, he was greeted by crowds that were so large that they filled balconies, windows, lamp posts, trees, and telephone poles. Weizmann saw a direct connection between the fate of European Jewry, these troops and the creation of a Jewish commonwealth. He told the crowd that the “remnants of the European Jews” would received the Jewish brigade as “a harbinger of freedom and by the masses of Jewish soldiers serving in the Allied armies as a symbol of national unity.”

1946: Bombs are set off in Jerusalem.

1947: A day after the two-state solution is approved by the United Nations, Arabs begin attacking Jews in Palestine.

1947: Arab rifleman fired shots at an ambulance on its way to Hadassah Hospital on Mt. Scopus.

1947(17th of Kislev, 5708): Arabs armed with machine guns and grenades attacked a bus traveling from the coast to Jerusalem killing four Jews including Jerusalemites Hirsh Stark and Hanna Weiss and twenty year old Shoshana Mizrachi Farhi who had been on her way to Jerusalem to get married.

1947(17th of Kislev, 5708): In another attack on a bus bound for Jerusalem, Arab gunmen killed Hehama Hacohen a pathologist at Hadassah Hospital.

1947(17th of Kislev, 5708): Moshe Goldman, a twenty five year old from Jerusalem was shot dead at the Jaffa-Tel Aviv boundary.

1947(17th of Kislev, 5708): Ernst Lubitsch passed away. Born in 1892, he was a German-born Jewish film director.” His urbane comedies of manners gave him the reputation of being Hollywood's most elegant and sophisticated director; as his prestige grew, his films were promoted as having "the Lubitsch touch".”

1947: On the day after UN decree for Israel, Arabs attacked Jewish settlements. Even though the Jewish state would not officially declare its independence until May, 1948, this day marked the beginning of the Israeli War of Independence as a bus near Lydda (Lod) was attacked by Arabs killing five passengers. The Arabs proclaimed a general strike and attacked the commercial quarter near the Old City of Jerusalem. The Arabs, including those living outside of Palestine, were determined to destroy the Jewish homeland before the mandate officially ended. Their efforts would include attacks on Jewish settlements throughout the Yishuv as well as a siege of the City of Jerusalem. The Arabs were well armed and moved about with impunity. The Jews were limited in their response by an international arms boycott and the presence of the British Army.

1947: Birthdate of David Mamet. Mamet is an American playwright, screenwriter, director and poet born to a Jewish family in a suburb of Chicago, Illinois. Mamet first gained acclaim for a trio of off-Broadway plays in The Duck Variations, Sexual Perversity in Chicago, and American Buffalo. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1984 for Glengarry Glen Ross. In 2006, he wrote The Wicked Son, an examination of self hating and assimilated Jews.

1948: Colonel Moshe Dayan of Israel and Lieutenant Colonel Abdullah el Tell of Transjordan Arab Legion sign cease-fire agreement.

1948: The American Council for Judaism asks Attorney General Tom C. Clark for a federal investigation of Menachem Begin’s U.S. activities.

1952: Birthdate of Semyon Mayevich Bychkov a Russian-American conductor who is the brother of the conductor Yakov Kreizberg, of blessed memory.

1952: Birthdate of Mandy Patinkin. Born Mandel Bruce Patinkin in Chicago, Illinois, Patinkin attended Kenwood High and the University of Kansas before beginning his Broadway career that playing Che Guevara in Evita and a leading role in Stephen Sondheim's Follies.

1953: Edward Mutesa II, the kabaka (king) of Uganda is deposed and exiled to London by Sir Andrew Cohen, Governor of Uganda. “Sir Andrew was from a distinguished Anglo-Jewish family. He was a descendant of Levi Barent Cohen, the founder of the oldest Ashkenazi family in Britain.”

1954: As Churchill celebrated his 80th birthday, Moshe Sharett (formerly Shertok), sent the aging British statesman a telegram praising him for his leadership again the Nazis during World War II and for his steadfast support of Zionism in general and the Balfour Declaration in particular.

1957: Eighty three year old Winston Churchill receives early Christmas presents – a case of Israeli oranges from Vera Weizmann, widow of Israel’s first President and long time friend of Churchill and a Virginia Ham from American Jewish financer Bernard Baruch.

1962: The United Nations General Assembly elects U Thant of Burma as the new UN Secretary-General. U Thant was the Secretary General who caved in to President Nasser’s demand to remove the UN peace keeping force from the Sinai. The men in the Blue Helmets were the guarantee that Egypt would not remilitarize the Sinai. U Thant’s spineless behavior, in violation of the understandings that had caused the Israelis to withdraw after the 1956 Sinai Campaign, set events in motion that would lead to war in June of 1967.

1962: Birthdate of actor Ben Stiller

1966: Barbados becomes independent from the United Kingdom. In 1667 “many Jews moved to Barbados to retain their British citizenship. Jews are believed to have been established in Barbados as early as 1628. In 1661, three Jewish businessmen requested permission to institute trade routes between Barbados and Surinam, which was still part of the British Empire. As will be seen repeatedly, even though the Jews had full legal citizenship and were allowed by the government to trade and conduct business, their success caused the other settlers to try to limit the scope of Jewish trade. British businessmen claimed the Jews traded more with the Dutch than the British, and the government did finally put limits on the Jews' ability to trade. They were not allowed to purchase slaves, and were required to live in a Jewish ghetto. By 1802, the colonial government in Barbados had removed all discriminatory regulations from the Jews living there. A Jewish community remained on Barbados until 1831, when a hurricane destroyed all of the towns on the island.” By the time Barbados gained its independence, there were approximately 80 Jews living in the country. In 1987, the Nidhei Israel Synagogue would be rededicated in a new location and the Old Jewish cemetery in Bridgetown would be restored. “The former Nidhei Israel building, which served as the synagogue, is today used for a library. The Jewish cemetery in Barbados is considered to be the oldest graveyard in the Western Hemisphere. A few of the graves date back to the 1660s and include Samuel Hart, son of Moses Hart, and Moses Nehemiah (the first Jew to live in Virginia). Today, approximately 40 Jews live on Barbados. It was the Jewish community of Barbados that initiated and maintains the Caribbean Jewish Congress.”

1975: WABC-AM is scheduled to broadcast Message of Israel with an address by Dr. Human Judah Schachtel.

1975: WBAI is scheduled to broadcast “A Hanukah Offering – Shtetl on the Hudson with Issac Bashevis Singer, Leonard Michaels and Jerome Charyn, writers who transformed the Jewish experience from the old country to New York

1975: WMCA is scheduled to broadcast a 2 hour program featuring an interview of playwright Dore Schary.

1975: WNBC is scheduled to broadcast the long-running Jewish radio series, Eternal Light, with an appearance by Harry Kemelman, author of “Tuesday the Rabbi Saw Red.”

1975: New York Senator Jacob Javits, the state’s most prominent Jewish Republican, is scheduled to appear on a broadcast of Focus on Youth.

1978(30th of Cheshvan, 5739): Rosh Chodesh Kislev

1979(10th of Kislev, 5740): Zeppo Marx, one of the famed Marx Brothers, passed away.

1979: Ted Koppel becomes anchor of nightly news on Iranian Hostages (ABC)

1980: Leonard Bernstein’s "West Side Story" closes at Minskoff Theater New York City after 341 performances

1988: As Israeli political leaders continue try and form a government following the election held on November 1, today the Labor Party decided to end coalition negotiations with Likud. At about the same time, its leader, Shimon Peres, vowed that if a measure redefining who is Jewish under the Law of Return were put to a vote in Parliament, every Labor member would ''vote clearly against it.''

1988: Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. buys RJR Nabisco for $25.07 billion. All three of the takeover kings were Jewish.

1994(27th of Kislev, 5755): Lionel Stander, the son of Russian Jewish immigrants whose gravelly voice and beetling brow made him a memorable presence on stage and screen and whose political beliefs in the era of the Hollywood blacklist earned him a long exile from American films, died today at his home in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles. He was 86. Mr. Stander, who began his show business career at the age of 17, was working as recently as two weeks ago, when he appeared once again with Robert Wagner and Stefanie Powers as Max, the lovable father figure, confidant and chauffeur, in a two-hour "Hart to Hart" special for broadcast by NBC in February. Often cast as a seriocomic villain, Mr. Stander appeared in such films as Frank Capra's "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town," William Wellman's 1937 version of "A Star Is Born," Preston Sturges's "Unfaithfully Yours," Tony Richardson's "Loved One," Roman Polanski's "Cul-de-Sac," Martin Scorsese's "New York, New York" and Steven Spielberg's "1941." At one point, he said, he was the most highly paid character actor in the business, "playing the pal of the star." Among those stars were Harold Lloyd, Gary Cooper, Fredric March, Jean Arthur, Rudy Vallee, Rex Harrison, Danny Kaye, Henry Fonda and Robert De Niro. Away from the cameras, Mr. Stander played something of a starring role in the political history of Hollywood. Fiercely liberal, he made a memorable appearance in 1953 before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, which had been investigating Communism in Hollywood for years. While many witnesses saved their careers by informing on others, Mr. Stander lectured the committee on democracy and due process of law and refused to repeat under oath his former frequent denials that he had ever been a Communist. Mr. Stander had helped organize the Screen Actors Guild, raised money for the Spanish Loyalists and campaigned for the release of the Scottsboro Boys. Hollywood executives regarded him as a red. One day in August 1939, his agent, Abe Lastvogel, told him, "Don't worry, Lionel, it'll blow over." Mr. Stander said: "Abe was right. But it took 24 years. Between 1939 and 1963 -- when my friend Tony Richardson put me in 'The Loved One' -- I didn't work for a major studio, except when somebody with courage, like Preston Sturges, decided to use me." Looking back, he said: "I've always been lefter than the Left, and I worked very closely with the Communist Party during the 30's. But I never joined." Ostracized from Hollywood, Mr. Stander found work in the theater, on Wall Street and in comedies and spaghetti westerns in Italy, where, in his 60's, he became an unofficial mayor of the Via Veneto in Rome. In his brocade jackets and frilled shirts, the womanizing actor was derided in Italian newspapers as "the world's oldest hippie." Mr. Stander was born on Jan. 11, 1908, in the Bronx and said he got into show business when he went with an actor friend to a rehearsal and volunteered as an extra for a dice game. Although he said he attended everything from the Little Red Schoolhouse to military and prep schools, he said he never graduated from any. He made his professional stage debut in E. E. Cummings's "Him" and appeared in Provincetown Playhouse productions of O'Neill's "Glencairn Cycle" as well as plays by Shakespeare, Shaw and Chekhov. He said he was signed for movies by RKO as a Russian dialectician in the early 1930's after radio appearances with Fred Allen, Eddie Cantor and Al Jolson. It took a while, he maintained, before producers realized he was an English-speaking actor. During World War II, Mr. Stander served in the Army Air Forces. (As reported by Lawrence Van Gelder)

1997(1st of Kislev, 5758): Rosh Chodesh Kislev

1997(1st of Kislev, 5758): Kathy Acker (née Karen Lehmann) “an American experimental novelist, prose stylist, playwright, essayist, postmodernist and sex-positive feminist writer” passed away.

1997: The New York Times featured reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or about topics of Jewish interest including The Darkside of Camelot by Seymour Hersh and an essay by Alfred Kazin entitled “Missing Murray Kempton.”

2000(3rd of Kislev, 5761): Ilona Karmel passed away. She was remembered as the author of the novel, An Estate of Memory. It is considered one of the most significant novels in English to address the experiences of Jewish women during World War II. Born in Cracow in 1925, Karmel was interned along with her mother and sister in three different labor camps after the Nazi occupation of Poland. She sustained severe leg injuries during the war and required years of recuperation before immigrating to the United States in 1948. Within four years of arriving in the United States, Karmel graduated from Radcliffe College, won a fiction-writing contest sponsored by Mademoiselle Magazine, and completed her first novel, Stephania. Stephania focused on the physical and spiritual recovery of a young woman who had survived the Nazi concentration camps. In 1969, Karmel published An Estate of Memory, which was reissued by the Feminist Press in 1986. Reviewed on the front page of the New York Times Book Review, it was one of the earliest significant literary treatments of Jewish experience in the Nazi camps and remains one of the most significant novels to address Jewish women's experiences during the Holocaust. Karmel taught creative writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for many years where an annual writing prize that she established has been renamed in her honor.

2002(25th of Kislev, 5763): First Day of Chanukah; light second candle in the evening

2003: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or on topics of special interest to Jewish readers including In An Uncertain World: Tough Choices From Wall Street to Washington by Robert E. Rubin and Jacob Weisberg, Secrets of the City by Anne Roiphe, Primo Levi: A Life by Ian Thomson and Rumsfeld: A Personal Portrait by Midge Decter

2005: It is official. Former Labor chairman Shimon Peres announced that he was ending his political activity in the Labor Party and would support Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in the upcoming March elections. Peres stated that Sharon was the appropriate person to head a coalition of peace and security. He said he was supporting Sharon as the person who had the best chance of restarting the peace process with the Palestinians. "In my opinion, the appropriate person to head the coalition that will bring peace is Arik Sharon," he said at a special press conference that he convened. "My party activities have concluded," he added. This ended the almost fifty year long relationship between Peres and the Labor Parrty (or its antecdents). In 1959 Peres entered the Knesset as a member of Mapai. He left Mapai to join David Ben-Gurion’s Rafi Party. In 1968, Rafi and Mapai merged to form the Labor Party.

2006: Haaretz reported that a small room in Kibbutz Merhavia which was once home to Israel's first woman prime minister, Golda Meir, has been renovated and refurbished in the style of the 1920s when Golda lived there. It will soon be opened to visitors seeking to learn a little about that period and the severe austerity that prevailed in the Meir household. The reconstructed room is in one of the kibbutz's old stone residential buildings.

2006(9th of Kislev, 5767): Poet, songwriter and journalist Eli Mohar who wrote the “Goings On Around Town” column in the Tel Aviv weekly Ha’ir passed away from cancer at the age of 58.

2006: Sasson Somekh, visiting professor in Jewish Studies, opened the Jews Among Arabs conference at Vanderbilt with a lecture based on his memoir Baghdad Yesterday. Somekh grew up in the Jewish community in Iraq in the 1930s and ‘40s. He pointed out that some 250 Muslim Iraqis died in 1941 while trying to defend their Jewish neighbors being attacked by a pro-Nazi mob. About 150 Jews were killed in the incident, which launched the decline of Jewish community in Iraq, which had thrived there for 26 centuries.

2007: John Strugnell, controversial Dead Sea Scrolls scholar, passed away.

2007: The Wall Street Journal listed Ramaz as one of the top schools for graduates entering the top eight universities in the country, with 10 out of a class of 100 (class of 2007) going to these schools. The Ramaz School is a coeducational, private Modern Orthodox Jewish prep school located on the Upper East Side of the New York City borough of Manhattan.

2007: At The Sydney Jewish Museum an exhibition styled “Butterflies of Hope” comes to an end. “Butterflies of Hope” is a very special exhibition designed to raise awareness of the plight of children trapped in war. Developed for children 10+ and their families, the exhibition introduces the Holocaust from a Child Survivors perspective. The experiences of Sydney based child Holocaust Survivors will be highlighted, along with original objects and photographs. Notably, original children’s drawings and a toy butterfly from the Terezin ghetto have been loaned from the Terezin Memorial Museum for the exhibition. A photographic exhibition of children caught up in recent genocides will also feature in the exhibition. Children are invited to inscribe a message of hope for children affected by such atrocities, and place it within the exhibition in support of the right of every child to live in peace.

2007: The week long launch of "Operation: Last Chance” will continue with a press conference in Chile. The Simon Wiesenthal Center's "Operation: Last Chance" is targeted to find and bring to justice at least some of the thousands of Nazis still hiding in South America 62 years after the end of World War II. It will probably be the final major effort to locate and bring to justice Nazis in hiding scattered around the world.

2007: The New York Times reviewed The Mascot: Unraveling the Mystery of My Jewish Father’s Nazi Boyhood by Mark Kurzem.

2007(20th of Kislev, 5768): IDF Private Ma’ayan Rotenberg of Kibbutz Beit Haemek passed away as a result of an accident while training with a tank unit. He died a week before his 19th birthday.

2008: The Orthodox Union's National Conference meeting, at the Ramada Hotel in Jerusalem comes to a close. Participants included Rabbi Metzger, Rabbi Lau, Rabbi Menachem Genack and Rabbi Herschel Schachter. The Keynote address was given by British Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks.

2008: The International Conference on Contemporary Issues and Halacha, opens at Yeshurun Synagogue in Jerusalem. The conference which is being held to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the death of Israel's first chief Rabbi Isaac Halevi Herzog of Blessed Memory features the theme: "They'll be there, will you?" "They" are 50 well-known personalities, including Chief Rabbis Yona Metzger and Shlomo Amar, along with their immediate predecessors Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau and Rabbi Eliahu Bakshi Doron, IDF Chief Rabbi Avraham Ronski, Yitzhak Peretz, Chief Rabbi of Raanana, lawyers Dr. Yaacov Weinroth and Prof. Yaakov Neeman, MKs Rabbi Michael Melchior, Rabbi Moshe Gafni and Zevulun Orlev, Supreme Court Justice Elyakim Rubinstein and retired Judge Zvi Tal.

2008: Four of eight soldiers wounded in terrorist attacks on the Nahal Oz Base Gaza crossing during the Sabbath remained hospitalized. Three of them are being treated for moderate to serious wounds in Soroka Medical center in Be'er Sheva. The fourth victim, Sergeant Noam Nakash, 21, of Beersheba, lost his leg in a mortar attack and is being treated in Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon.

2009: Amy Goodman, host of the radio and television program "Democracy Now!," discusses and signs her new book, Breaking the Sound Barrier, at Busboys and Poets in Washington, D.C.

2009: AJWS and its President, Ruth Messinger join Congregation Emanu-El, Congregation Emanu-El’s Young Adult Community, Congregation Beth Sholom, Congregation Sherith Israel, Taube Center for Jewish Life at the JCCSF, The Hub of the JCCSF, The SF Bay Area Darfur Coalition and Congregation Sha’ar Zahav to cosponsor an advance screening of Reporter the new documentary featuring Nicholas Kristof, two-time Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times columnist. Reporter documents Kristoff’s efforts to write about the gut-wrenching conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

2009: The opening of the John Demjanjuk trial today in Munich had to be delayed by over an hour because of the flood of visitors - including Holocaust survivors - who wished to observe what might be the last prosecution of an alleged Nazi war criminal. Munich's public prosecutor has charged the 89-year-old Demjanjuk with assisting in the murder of 27,900 Jews while serving as a concentration camp guard at Sobibor in Nazi-occupied Poland. Demjanjuk entered the court in a wheelchair, his eyes closed. He wore a baseball cap and was covered in a blue blanket. Demjanjuk kept his eyes closed throughout the proceedings and remained mute in response to the judge's questions about his personal details. He repeatedly opened his mouth, apparently wincing in pain. AP reported that a doctor examined him two hours before the trial and found his physical condition to be stable. The trial will be limited to three hours each day in two 90-minute sessions, based on a doctor's evaluation of Demjanjuk's physical condition. Ulrich Busch, Demjanjuk's German criminal defense attorney, compared his client with the survivors of concentrations camps. Demjanjuk was compelled to work in the Sobibor camp, and the Nazis issued orders to him that were "on the same level" as prisoners of extermination camps, said Busch. Demjanjuk, who was born in the Ukraine, fled to the United States after the Holocaust. "How can you say that those who gave the orders were innocent ... and the one who received the orders is guilty?" Busch told the court. "There is a moral and legal double standard being applied today." Dr. Alexander Brenner, the former of head of the Berlin Jewish community, told The Jerusalem Post that the trial could contribute to showing the role of "collaborators in Russia, Latvia, and Ukraine" in carrying out the extermination of European Jewry. Brenner and his family fled Nazi-occupied Poland. The widely read online edition of Der Spiegel termed the case on Monday a "trial of missed opportunities," and raised questions about the passivity of the Nazi research center in Ludwigsburg and its failure to pursue the Demjanjuk investigation. Kurt Schrimm, the director of Ludwigsburg center, confirmed to the Post that the agency was aware "seven or eight years ago" of Demjanjuk's role as a guard at Sobibor. Schrimm said the center gained access to the records in the US and at Yad Vashem in Israel. Asked why the center refused to commence a prosecution, Schrimm said that it "was determined that we could not pursue the accusations in Germany because Demjanjuk was a United States citizen." According to critics in Germany and Israel, the German government systematically ignored cases like Demjanjuk's, as well as Nazis living in post-war Germany who were responsible for the Holocaust. In 2007, the Wiesenthal Center issued a "failing grade" in its annual report to the German authorities for failing to seek indictments and convictions against Nazi war criminals. The Spiegel article suggested that the German authorities - including Ludwigsburg - remained largely passive and non-cooperative about hunting down Nazis. "The Germans could have apprehended Demjanjuk if they wanted to," wrote Spiegel. Avner Shalev, chairman of Yad Vashem, said in a statement that, "Unquestionably, trials centered on crimes committed during the Holocaust serve as significant forums for raising awareness about the Holocaust. They provide an opportunity to highlight not only events, but to explore society-wide and individual responsibility for the atrocities that were committed during that time." The opening of the trial attracted intense media interest, with 200 accredited journalists attending the first trial session. The trial is expected to run until May

2010: "My Mother's Italian, My Father's Jewish, and I'm Home for the Holidays!," is scheduled to have its first performance in Charlotte, NC.

2010: The Shin Bet has arrested three Palestinian militants suspected of carrying out a shooting attack against two Israelis in late September, it emerged today The three Palestinians belong to the Abu-Moussa group, a splinter faction of Fatah; the head of the cell received his military training in Syria and Lebanon. The suspects were charged today at the Ofer Military Court. The defense establishment said that they admitted during their interrogation to plotting other terror attacks. Israeli authorities confiscated two M-16 rifles, a handgun, a LAW missile, a homemade explosives charger and mass amounts of ammunition. The incident in question occurred on September 26, just hours before Israel's temporary moratorium on West Bank settlement construction was set to expire. Sharon Zucker and his wife Neta, in the ninth month of pregnancy, were lightly wounded when shots were fired at them as they drove in the southern Hebron hills in the West Bank, near the Omerim Junction. The assailants also fired on another passing Israeli-owned car. One vehicle did not sustain any damage, but the other car, which was driven by Sharon Zucker, was pierced by bullets. Neta Zucker was rushed from the scene of the shooting to Soroka Medical Center in Be'er Sheva, where she gave birth to a son via Cesarean section. The attack coincided with frantic diplomatic efforts to resolve the disagreement over Israel's West Bank settlement freeze, an issue that threatened the recently launched direct negotiations between Jerusalem and Ramallah. In late August, four Israelis were shot dead in their car near the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba less than a day before Israeli and Palestinian leaders met in Washington for a summit to announce the talks. The attack, for which Hamas claimed responsibility, shattered years of relative calm in the West Bank. One day later, two Israelis were wounded, one seriously, in a shooting attack near the Israeli settlement of Kochav Hashachar.

2010: Norman Lebrecht reviews “Why Mahler?: How One Man and Ten Symphonies Changed Our World.”

2011: The Chabad Jewish Center in Metairie, LA, is scheduled to host its monthly Rosh Chodesh event which this month is entitled “Impression & Expression: The Essential Woman.”

2011: In New Orleans, Temple Sinai is scheduled to host its final session of this month’s Adult Education Series, “The Major Message of the Minor Prophet!”

2011: David Schmahmann is scheduled to discuss his new novel “The double Life of Alfred Buber” as the final event of the Jewish Community Center of the North Shore’s Jewish Book Month.

Created and Edited by Mitchell Levin Cedar Rapids, IA melech3@mchsi.com
Copyright; November, 2011; Mitchell A. Levin