This Day, December 12, In Jewish HIstory

December 12 In Jewish History

627: A Byzantine army under Emperor Heraclius defeats Emperor Khosrau II's Persian forces, commanded by General Rhahzadh at the Battle of Nineveh. This meant that The Byzantine or Eastern Roman Empire regained control of the Middle East, including Jerusalem. Unfortunately, Heraclius, the Byzantine Emperor did not keep his promise to his Jewish allies to give them control of David’s City and its environs.

1098: During the First Crusade, Christian forces breach the walls of Ma'arrat al-Numan in Syria and massacre about 20,000 inhabitants. Some view this is as a “dress rehearsal” of the massacres that took place when the Crusaders arrived in Jerusalem and slaughtered the Jewish and Moslem inhabitants

1474: Isabella crowns herself queen of Castile and Aragon in what will become a milestone on the road to end of the Jewish Community in Spain in 1492. Ironically two of the people who would help her come to power and/or consolidate her crown were Don Isaac Abravanel and Don Abraham Senior.

1479: The Jews were expelled from Schlettstadt, Alsace by Emperor Frederick III

1484: At Soncino, Italy, Joseph Solomon Soncino printed the first copy of “Beḥinat ha-'Olam” (The Examination of the World) by Jedaiah ben Abraham Bedersi a Jewish poet, physician and philosopher. Born in 1270 at Béziers, he was the son of Abraham Profiat, another French-Jewish poet. He passed away in 1340. Beḥinat ha-'Olam (The Examination of the World), called also by its first words, "Shamayim la-Rom" (Heaven's Height), a didactic poem written after the banishment of the Jews from France (1306), to which event reference is made in the eleventh chapter. The 37 “chapter” poem concludes with an expression of Bedersi’s admiration of Maimonides.

1505: In Ceske Budejovice, Czechoslovakia, ten Jews were tortured and killed after being accused by a local shepherd of killing a local girl. Years later on his deathbed, the shepherd confessed that he made up the whole story.

1524: Pope Clement VII approved the organization of a Jewish Community in Rome

1574: Selim II, Ottoman Sultan, passed away. During his reign, Selim appointed Joseph Nassi as the Duke of Naxos. He appointed his physician Solomon Nathan Eskenazi to serve as ambassador in Venice where he participated in negotiations for a treaty between the Turks and the Spanish. When Turkish forces took Cyprus, Selim had five hundred Jewish families settle on the island. This was a way of improving the economic environment on the island while ensuring the presence of a loyal local population.

1626: Inquisitional authorities arrested Francisco Maldonado de Silva, after his sister (a devout Catholic) turned him because he told her he believed in Judaism, as their father had. His passion for Judaism came after studying a book written in 1391 by the Bishop of Burgos. The Bishop, a convert Jews who was born as Solomon Halevi, wrote the book to defend the Catholic faith. Halevi's words put doubt into Francisco's mind about Catholicism, and brought him closer to Judaism-the religion Francisco's father had already been following. In the end Francisco went to his death January 23, 1639 for his faith in Judaism.

1653: The Short Parliament was dissolved today leaving Oliver Cromwell, who held the title of Protector of the Realm, as the king-like ruler of England. This may have actually helped Manasseh ben Israel in his effort to gain readmission of the Jews since Cromwell, unlike some of his allies, actively supported the Jews attempts to return to the British Isles.

1670: Today the Sephardic Jewish community of Amsterdam acquired the site to build a synagogue

1787: Pennsylvania became the second state to ratify the U.S. Constitution. Religious qualifications for holding state and local office were abolished in 1790. Jews had been part of Pennsylvania even before the coming of William Penn. The community had its start with Jewish traders who operated in what would be the southeastern corner of the soon to be founded colony. Mikveh Israel (Hope of Israel) the Philadelphia’s first synagogue was established in the 1740’s. When an enlarged Mikveh Israel, under the leadership of Gershom Mendes Seixas was dedicated in 1782, a wide variety of public officials attended. Jews were earlier settlers of Lancaster where a Jewish burial plot was established in 1747. The size of the Jewish population was exaggerated due to that fact that the English confused Yiddish speaking Jews with the German speaking Pennsylvania Dutch.

1806: Birthdate of Rabbi Isaac Lesser, one of the most important leaders of the 19th century American-Jewish community whose accomplishments included completing the first translation of the Bible from Hebrew in English published in the United States.

1831: In Jamaica, a tankard was presented to Moses Delgado in recognition of his work on behalf of Jewish rights

1841: Jacob Frankfort arrived in Los Angeles as part of the Rowland-Workman party. Frankfort, one of the earliest Jewish settlers in New Mexico had been living in Taos when he hurriedly left town because authorities believed he was part of a group of Texans seeking to take control of the territory. He and some of his confederates joined a scientific expedition and traveled with them to California.

1851: An article entitled “Interesting Hebrew Relic” published today reported that in Washington, DC, Colonel Lea, the Commissioner of Indian affairs has in his possession “four small rolls or strips of parchment, closely packed in the small compartments of a little box or locket of about an inch cubical content. On these parchments are written, in a style of unsurpassed excellence, and far more beautiful than print, portions of the Pentateuch, to be worn as frontlets and intended as stimulants to the memory and moral sense.” The item was brought to Washington from the Pottawatomie Reservation on the Kansas River by a man named Dr. Lykins. Lykins got them from a member of the tribe name Pategwe who had gotten them from his aged grandmother. Originally there had been two boxes, but one of them had been lost long ago when the Indians were crossing some river rapids. The Indians believed that the lost box contained a description of the creation of the world. Nobody seems to know how the boxes first came into the possession of the Indians. They cannot remember a time when they did not have them in their possession. The article concludes, “The question occurs here, does not this circumstance give some color to the idea, long and extensively entertained, that the Indians of our continent are or less Jewish in their origin?”

1853: Rabbi Raphall delivered the last in a series of lectures on “The Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews” in New York City.

1855(3rd of Tevet, 5616): 8th and final day of Chanukah

1861: At today’s regular meeting of the Board of Councilmen the report in favor of donating $30,000 to the Hebrew Benevolent Association was finally adopted.

1874: It was reported today that it appears Russian government has ordered to the managers of the nation’s railway companies to fire all of the Jews in their employ and not to hire any Jews in the future.

1878: Joseph Pulitzer begins publishing "St Louis Dispatch." Pulitzer’s father was Jewish. His mother was Roman Catholic.

1882: Birthdate of famed chess player Akiba Rubenstein.

1885: In New York, Rabbi S. Schocher, of Russ, a city near Memel, Prussia gave a lecture at Or Chaim in the classical style of the old-fashioned Derashot.

1889: Poet Robert Browning passed away. Browning wrote “Rabbi ben Ezra.” The poem is based on the life Abraham ibn Ezra. Ibn Ezra lived from 1092 until 1167 and was a leading figure in what was known as the Golden Age in Spain. Ibn Ezra was second only in fame to Rashi as Torah commentator. He was the first two attribute that the last section of Deuternomy describing the death of Moses was written by Joshua. He was also the first two attribute the last 26 chapters of the Book of Isaiah to a different writer now known as the Second Isaiah. The poem begins with the famous line “Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be…”

1893: Birthdate of actor Edward G Robinson. Born Emanuel Goldenberg in Romania, Robinson came to the United States in 1902. Robinson gained early fame playing in gangster movies including the classic Little Caesar and Key Largo. He also had a deft comedic ability. One of his most often seen, and poorest performances, is as the grumbling Jew in “The Ten Commandants.” He passed away in 1973.

1895: In New York, the Hebrew Fair continued to draw “immense crowds” and enjoy three days of increasing financial success.

1897: Anti-Jewish violence broke out in Bucharest, Romania.

1903(23rd of Kislev, 5664): Solomon Loeb, one of the founders of the banking firm of Kuhn, Loeb &Co., passed away this evening in New York City at the age of 74.

1905: Birthdate of Manès Sperber an Austrian born French novelist, essayist and psychologist who also wrote under the pseudonyms Jan Heger and N.A. Menlos. He was also the father of Italian historian Vladimir Sperber and French anthropologist and cognitive scientist Dan Sperber.

1905: Birthdate of Iosif Solomonovich Grossman who gained fame as Soviet author and journalist Vasily Semyonovich Grossman.

1906: The Brownsville Retail Kosher Butcher’s Association was meeting at the same time that the women of Brownsville were holding a mass meeting designed to gain support for a boycott of the Beef Trust. The mass meeting was chaired by Israel Reichman. There were 350 butchers at the Kosher Butcher’s meetings, 100 of whom have closed their shops in support of the attempts to end the Beef Trust.

1906: Leopold Greenberg, owner of a successful British advertising agency, publisher of “The Jewish Yearbook” and an ardent Zionist writes Jacobus Kann, his friend a Dutch Zionist, that “The Jewish Chronicle” is for sale and he has begun negotiating for its purchase.

1909: Birthdate of Hans Alex Keilson, “a Jewish German/Dutch novelist, poet, psychoanalyst, and child psychologist who wrote about traumas relating to what happened in Europe during WWII. In particular, he worked with traumatized orphans. Some of his novels deal with the same time period, though his first one was published in 1934. He was also active in the Dutch Resistance. Francine Prose has called him one of ‘the world’s very greatest writers.’" (As reported by William Grimes)

1911: During the days of the British Empire, Delhi replaced Calcutta as the capital of India. Shalom Aaron Cohen who came to India from Aleppo in 1790 was one of the first Jews to settle in Calcutta. The arrival of Jews from Baghdad during the 19th century marked an upturn in their economic and social power that lasted until the power World War II rise of Indian nationalism.

1913: Hebrew language officially used to teach in schools located in Palestine.

1915: Birthdate of Frank Sinatra. Sinatra “may have been one of America 's most famous Italian Catholics, but he kept the Jewish people and the State of Israel close to his heart, manifesting life-long commitments to fighting anti-Semitism and to activism on behalf of Israel . Sinatra stepped forward in the early 1940s, when big names were needed to rouse America into saving Europe's remaining Jews, and he sang at an "Action for Palestine” rally (1947). He sat on the board of trustees of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and he donated over $1 million to Jerusalem’s Hebrew University, which honored him by dedicating the Frank Sinatra International Student Center . (The Center made heartbreaking headlines when terrorists bombed it in 2002, killing nine people.) As the result of his support for the Jewish State, his movies and records were banned in some Arab countries. Sinatra helped Teddy Kollek, later the long-serving mayor of Jerusalem but then a member of the Haganah, by serving as a $1 million money-runner that helped Israel win the war. The Copacabana Club, which was very much run and controlled by the same Luciano-related New York Mafia crowd with whom Sinatra had become enmeshed, happened to be next door to the hotel out of which Haganah members were operating. In his autobiography, Kollek relates how, trying in March 1948 to circumvent an arms boycott imposed by President Harry Truman on the Jewish fighters in Eretz Yisroel, he needed to smuggle about $1 million in cash to an Irish ship captain docked in the Port of New York. The young Kollek spotted Sinatra at the bar and, afraid of being intercepted by federal agents, asked for help. In the early hours of the morning, the singer went out the back door with the money in a paper bag and successfully delivered it to the pier. The origins of Sinatra's love affair with the Jewish people are not clear, but for years, the Hollywood icon wore a small mezuzah around his neck, a gift from Mrs. Golden, an elderly Jewish neighbor who cared for him during his boyhood in Hoboken, N.J. (Years later, he honored her by purchasing a quarter million dollars' worth of Israel bonds). He protected his Jewish friends, once responding to an anti-Semitic remark at a party by simply punching the offender. Time magazine reported that Sinatra walked out on the christening of his own son when the priest refused to allow a Jewish friend to be the godfather. As late as 1979, he raged over the fact that a Palm Springs cemetery official in California declared that he could not arrange the burial of a deceased Jewish friend over the Thanksgiving holiday; Sinatra again -- threatened to punch him in the nose. Sinatra famously played the role of a Jewish pilot in Cast a Giant Shadow, the 1966 film filmed in Israel and starring friend Kirk Douglas as Mickey Marcus, the Jewish-American colonel who fought and died in Israel's War for Independence (Sinatra dive-bombs Egyptian tanks with seltzer bottles!) He donated his salary for the part to the Arab-Israeli Youth Center in Nazareth, and he also made a significant contribution to the making of Genocide, a film about the Holocaust, and helped raise funds for the film. Less known is Sinatra in Israel (1962), a short 45-minute featurette he made in which he sang "In the Still of the Night "and "Without a Song". He also starred in "The House I Live In" (1945), a ten-minute short film made to oppose anti-Semitism at the end of World War II, which received an Honorary Academy Award and a special Golden Globe award in 1946.”

1917: Four days after the British arrival in Jerusalem, Dr. Yaakov Thon, convened a meeting of Jewish leaders with an eye toward establishing a City council of Jerusalem Jews.

1920: The Histadrut Ha-ovdim (General Labor Federation) was founded in pre-state Israel. Its founder, Berel Katznelson, a disciple of Ber Borochov, combined various labor groups to form a federation

1924: Birthdate of Edward I Koch. Koch served as Mayor of New York City from 1977 to 1989.

1924: In Berlin, Alexander Israel Helphand, the man who negotiated with the German’s during World War I to gain Lenin’s return to Russia from Switzerland which brought about the Communist Revolution and took Russia out of World War I passed away.

1925: The Majlis of Iran votes to crown Reza Khan as the new Shah of Persia. The new Shah removed “removed restrictions on Jews and other religious minorities.’ He prohibited the mass conversion of Jews and “Jews were allowed to hold government jobs.” But the Shah’s sympathetic view of Nazi Germany, along with an under-current of anti-Jewish sentiment, left the community with a sense of discomfort.

1931: Dr. Alexander Rosenfeld, vice president of the World Maccabee Association, spoke this afternoon over WLPH from the Lyric Theatre, Brooklyn. He talked about the forthcoming Maccabee Jewish Games which will be held in Tel Aviv in March, 1932 and in which more than 3,000 Jewish athletes from all parts of the world are expected compete.

1935: Heinrich Himmler begins the Lebensborn Project.

1937: Jewish writer Arch Oboler caused more controversy with his script contribution to today’s edition of The Chase and Sanborn Hour. In Oboler's sketch, host Don Ameche and guest Mae West portrayed a slightly bawdy Adam and Eve, satirizing the Biblical tale of the Garden of Eden. On the surface, the sketch did not feature much more than West's customary suggestive double-entendres, and today it seems quite tame. But in 1937, that sketch and a subsequent routine featuring West trading suggestive quips with Edgar Bergen's dummy Charlie McCarthy cause a furor that resulted in West being banned from broadcasting and from being mentioned at all on NBC programming for 15 years.

1937: The Palestine Post reported numerous assassinations, attempted murders, hold-ups and robberies perpetrated by Arab terrorists all over the country. In Haifa, Elimelech Gromet, 13, the victim of a terror attack in the Hadar Hacarmel quarter, died of his wounds. Sheikh Khatib, an Arab notable, and his bodyguard were murdered in the town's Arab quarter. In Jerusalem all gates of the Old City, except for the well-guarded Jaffa and Damascus gates, were closed from early in the evening until late the following morning.

1939: In eastern areas of Greater Germany, two years of forced labor is made compulsory for all Jewish males aged 14 to 60.

1939: Jews are expelled from Kalisz in the Warthegau region of Poland; many flee to Warsaw.

1940: The Salvador, a ship that set out from Varna, Bulgaria, a month ago, sinks in the Sea of Marmora; 250 Jewish refugees, including 75 children, drown. T. M. Snow, head of the British Foreign Office's Refugee Section, notes that "there could have been no more opportune disaster from the point of view of stopping this [Jewish refugee] traffic [to Palestine]."

1941: Adolf Hitler announced plans for the extermination of the Jews at a meeting in the Reich Chancellery

1941: In the second action in two weeks, the Germans killed another estimated 12,000 inhabitants of the Riga Ghetto.

1941: The German Army of Occupation began a house to house search in Paris looking for Jews.

1941: The SS Struma set sail from Constanţa, on the Black Sea

1942: The Jews of Volhunia revolt against a German round-up.

1942 Jewish prisoners at a labor camp in Lutsk, Ukraine, armed with knives, bricks, iron bars, acid, and several revolvers and sawed-off shotguns, revolt against Germans and Ukrainians. The uprising is crushed.

1943: The chairman of the Jewish Council in Wlodzimierz Wolynski, Poland, the site of street massacres in 1942, assures the remaining ghetto residents that they will be safe

1945: The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved a resolution of U.S. aid to open Palestine to Jewish refugees.

1946: Arabs call for a general strike to protest the alleged abduction of an Arab in Salame, Palestine by the Haganah.

1946: Two illegal Arab Armies were merged by the Arab High Committee into the Arab Youth Movement.

1946: Birthdate of Steve Goldsmith, Harvard professor and former mayor of Indianapolis, Indiana.

1947: Gordon P. Merriam, chief of Division of Near Eastern Affairs, refers Dr. Irving E Medoff of New Jersey to the United Nations after he had written to the U.S. State department concerning his interest in organizing an air force group to operate in Palestine. Merriam’s referral is based on the U.S. view that matters pertaining to Palestine are under the control of the UN.

1947: King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia promised that the Arabs will protect and maintain American oil operations at the same time expressing the hope that the U.S. will correct its “mistake” on the issue of Palestine Partition

1947: British foreign minister Ernest Bevin asks the Jews for a moratorium on “illegal immigration” while the mandate is still in power.

1947: UN Trusteeship Subcommittee announces that internationalized Jerusalem will only have a police force which can call on UN Security Council if more order is needed. Legislature is legally "rigged" so a minority group will keep a balance of power between Jewish and Arab factors.

1947: The Arab League voted to provide funds, weapons and volunteers for an impending Palestine war designed to thwart the United Nation’s partition vote. An Arab Liberation Army under the command of an Iraqi staff officer named Ismail Safwat Pasha established its headquarters outside of Damascus and gave field command to Fawzi al-Qawujki a veteran terrorist leader of the uprisings during the 1930’s.

1947(29th of Kislev, 5708): An Arab gang stopped a BOAC truck leaving Lydda Airport. The Arabs told the Arabs on the truck to run away. The three Jews – Yitzhak Jian, David Ben Ovadia and Joseph Litvak - were then shot dead.

1948: Israel and Transjordan let Christians travel to Bethlehem for Christmas pilgrimages

1948: “Less than two weeks after the signing of the final cease-fire, the ‘Valor Road’ was opened by Ben-Gurion as a secure by-pass for travel from Jerusalem to the coast. The road replaced the famous ‘Burma Road’ and made it possible for Jews to travel the fifteen miles from the Judean hills to the coastal settlements without having to brave Arab sniper attacks.

1949: The U.S. asks Israel and Jordan not to do anything which would disrupt relations with other Arab states or the Vatican.

1950: Paula Ackerman became the interim "spiritual leader" of Temple Beth Israel in Meridian, Mississippi after her husband, who was the congregation's rabbi, passed away. In 1919, Paula Herskovitz had married Rabbi William Ackerman. As a rebbitzin, Paula Ackerman was an active partner, not only teaching in the Hebrew school and helping out with the sisterhood, but also taking her husband's place in the pulpit whenever he was absent or ill. Ackerman was also a member of the board of the Reform movement's National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods (NFTS) and chairman of NFTS's National Committee on Religious Schools. After Ackerman's husband died on November 30, 1950, the synagogue's president asked the 57-year-old Ackerman if she could "carry on the ministry until they could get a rabbi." Ackerman wrote in a letter to a friend, "I also know how revolutionary the idea is—therefore it seems to be a challenge that I pray I can meet. If I can just plant a seed for the Jewish woman's larger participation—if perhaps it will open a way for women students to train for congregational leadership—then my life would have some meaning." Concerns among national Reform leaders about Ackerman's lack of proper ordination and rabbinic education were mostly expressed privately. Many understood the importance of Ackerman's example in showing that a woman could serve in a rabbinical role. She steered Beth Israel for the next three years, leading weekly and holiday services, officiating at weddings, confirmations, and funerals, and participating in meetings of Mississippi rabbis. Eventually, Beth Israel did find a man to serve as their rabbi, but in 1962 when the rabbi of Ackerman's childhood synagogue, in Pensacola, Florida, suddenly quit, she agreed to return to the rabbinical role to temporarily hold that congregation together as well.

1952: The Jerusalem Post reported that the Political Committee of the UN General Assembly passed, by 32 votes to 13, with 13 abstentions, a strongly-worded resolution calling for direct Arab-Israeli negotiations.

1952(24th of Kislev, 5713): In the evening, kindle the first Chanukah light

1953: Birthdate of Ben Shalom Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board.

1963: Kenya gains its independence from the United Kingdom. Jews began to settle in Kenya in the early years of the 20th century. In 1904, The Nairobi Hebrew Congregation was established in 1904 and the 20 families living in Nairobi built the country’s first synagogue in 1913. The community saw some growth after World War II. In 1955, “Israel Somen, the president of the Board of Kenya Jewry, was elected mayor of Nairobi.” A small Jewish community has continued to exist which has not been always been the case of former colonies in sub-Saharan Africa. Israel and Kenya continue to enjoy positive relations.

1966: A 27 year member of Local 338 writes to the national union headquarters expressing his despair over the deteriorating conditions in the bagel industry which are leading to cuts in pay, benefits and the number of jobs available for bakers.

1970: Birthdate of Jennifer Connelly who won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress 2002 for A Beautiful Mind and the 2002 Golden Globe 2002 for same role.

1971(24th of Kislev, 5732): In the evening, kindle the first Chanukah light.

1971(24th of Kislev, 5732): David Sarnoff, CEO of RCA and founder of NBC, passed away. Born in Russia 1891, Sarnoff reportedly studied to be a rabbi before joining the Marconi Wireless Company as a telegraph operator. He became the leading figure in the creation of RCA.

1974: In Jerusalem, an explosive device went off in Ben Yehuda Street. Thirteen people were injured lightly to moderately.

1975: Birthdate of Mayim Bialik. The actress is best known for her role in “Blossom.” The daughter of Jews born in Poland, she majored in Jewish Studies.

1978(12th of Kislev, 5739): American painter Norman Raeben died of heart attack in the lobby of his apartment. Born in Russia in 1901, he was “the youngest of the six children of Yiddish author Sholom Aleichem.” “The pen-name 'Raeben' is probably derived from his family-name 'Rabinowitz'. Raeben moved to New York City with his family in 1914. He studied painting from Robert Henri, George Luks and John French Sloan, who all belonged to the Ashcan School. His studio was on the 11th floor of Carnegie Hall. His students include Bob Dylan, Bernice Sokol Kramer, Carolyn Schlam, Andrew Gottlieb, Janet Cohn, John Smith, Diana Postel, Lori Lerner and Rosalyn (Roz) Jacobs. Raeben's mission was to teach the art of painting through intuition and feeling, instead of through conceptualization.”

1979(22nd of Kislev, 5740): Elka de Levie, the only Jewish gymnast of the triumphant 1928 Dutch ladies’ gymnastics team, which won the Olympic title in Amsterdam in 1928 to survive the horrors of the Holocaust, passed away.

1988: Foreign Minister Shimon Peres urged the Palestine Liberation Organization today to direct its diplomacy toward Israel rather than the United States. ‘We criticize the Palestinian position and their declarations because they have been looking for expressions that travel well in Washington rather than for positions that make sense in Jerusalem,'' Mr. Peres told a meeting of American and Israeli officials and academics. ''The Palestinians must remember, as we do that coexistence between the Palestinians and Israel must take place in the Middle East and not in North America,'' Mr. Peres said. ''The Palestinians must not only talk peace - and I appreciate statements in favor of peace - but behave peacefully,'' he said.

1988: European countries are pressing the Palestine Liberation Organization and its Arab allies to moderate plans to seek United Nations recognition of an independent Palestinian state, diplomats said today. The effort came on the eve of a special meeting of the United Nations General Assembly. Yasir Arafat, the P.L.O. chairman, is to be the main speaker Tuesday when the Assembly holds its first meeting in Geneva. The Assembly decided to move here for its annual debate on the Palestinian question after the Reagan Administration refused to give Mr. Arafat a visa to address the Assembly in New York.

1989: In an article entitled “Soviets Trying to Become Team Player in Mideast” published today, Alan Cowell describes the change in Russian Middle East policy from one of confrontation to “partnership with Washington in the diplomacy of the region.”

1990: A fund-raising dinner and dance is held at the Pierre to further the restoration of the Eldridge Street Synagogue on the Lower East Side. The event also honors the founders of the Eldridge Street Project, who include Brooke Astor, Joan K. Davidson, Simon Rifkind and Joanna and Daniel Rose.

1990: The 1991 fund-raising campaign of the UJA-Federation of New York opens with the Lawyers Division annual Proskauer Award Dinner during which Ira M. Millstein, a senior partner in the New York law firm of Weil, Gotshal & Manges, receives the award.

1990: The Young Professionals of the American Friends of Tel Aviv University sponsor a concert at Steinway Hall to raise money to help replace the instruments Soviet émigré musicians in Israel could not take from the Soviet Union. The pianist Dina Joffe and her husband, the violinist Mikhail Vaiman, and the pianist Byron Janis, an officer of American Friends, are among those who help to provide the evening’s entertainment.

1993: Today Mr. Rabin and Yasir Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, agreed in Cairo that they needed more time to resolve complex security issues before self-rule could begin in roiling Gaza and placid Jericho, and they gave themselves at least another 10 days.

1993: Under attack by some political leaders for dealing far less firmly with Jews who commit acts of violence than with Palestinians, the Israeli Army today ordered soldiers to take "strong action" against law-breaking settlers in the occupied territories, including possible arrests and curfews.

1994: Israel and Jordan fleshed out their new peace treaty some more today, opening temporary embassies in each other's country and saying they would exchange ambassadors next month. For the first time, an Israeli flag flew openly in Amman, and in a separate ceremony a few hours later, the Jordanian flag was raised in Tel Aviv, where almost all countries put their missions to Israel. Both embassies are in hotels for now, until permanent locations are found. Israel has yet to name its ambassador to Jordan, which on Oct. 26 became the second Arab country, after Egypt, to sign a peace treaty with the Jewish state. Amman has appointed Marwan Muasher, a former spokesman for the Jordanian delegation to peace talks in Washington, as its ambassador, but he will not begin his assignment for several more weeks.

1995: Israeli PM Shimon Peres addressed both houses of the US Congress.

1997: John Marks, the former Berlin bureau chief for U.S. News & World Report wrote an essay cautioning against letting the hunt for the stolen assets hoarded by the Swiss and other European dangers overshadow the reality of the primary villain of the Holocaust, Nazi Germany. “’No one would argue that German evil absolves Swiss cupidity or French collaboration. But it would be a very odd paradox indeed if the partial eclipse of German culpability became a permanent historical fixture” as the heirs of the Holocaust seek to regain the property of their progenitors.

1999: The New York Times book section includes a review of Jacob H. Schiff: A Study in American Jewish Leadership by Naomi W. Cohen.

1999(3rd of Tevet, 5760): Author Joseph Heller passed away. He is best remembered as the author of Catch-22. a book whose title has entered the English language

2001: Yasser Arafat bowed to long-standing Israeli demands by ordering the closure of the offices of the militant Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The supposed closing had no effect in ending the terrorism which enjoyed Arafat’s continued support.

2001: Irv Rubin, JDL Chairman, and Earl Krugel, a member of the organization, were charged with conspiracy to bomb private and government property. The two allegedly were caught in the act of planning bomb attacks against the King Fahd Mosque in Culver City, California and on the office of U.S. Representative Darrell Issa, who is Arab-American. The two were arrested as part of a sting operation after an FBI informant named Danny Gillis delivered explosives to Krugel's home in L.A

2002: Austria failed in its attempt to block a lawsuit by an 86-year-old American citizen who fled the Nazis in 1942 and whose uncle owned the works. In a promising ruling, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said that Austria was not immune from a suit in American courts when the interests of justice outweigh the inconvenience to a foreign country.

2003: Italy’s Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, president of the European Union, proclaimed the body’s deep concern at the increase in instances of anti-Semitic intolerance and strongly condemns all manifestations of anti-Semitism, including attacks against religious sites and individuals.”

2003: Irwin Cotler, Canada's Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada from 2003 until the Liberal government of Paul Martin lost power following the 2006 federal election was sworn into Cabinet today.

2004: The New York Times features a review of A Tale of Love and Darkness by Amos Oz; translated by Nicholas de Lange

2005: Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr. honored Gerald Schoenfeld and four city leaders at his annual Jewish Heritage celebration today. The event was co-sponsored with the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York (JCRC) and The Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty. Addressing several hundred people at City Hall, Thompson said: "Today, we may be far removed in time from the days of the first Jewish settlers and early immigrants. But we have much to learn from their example. Their dreams, their resilience, and their courage are a source of inspiration as we meet the challenges of today, at home and abroad." Thompson continued: "Our honorees this evening are all New Yorkers who have inspired those around them and contributed tremendously to the quality of life in our city. They include publishers, arts leaders, educators, entrepreneurs, and community leaders. They are all role models, and they have all brought vision, leadership, and dedication to their endeavors." Comptroller Thompson presented his Lifetime Achievement Award to Gerald Schoenfeld. Schoenfeld is Chairman of the Board of the Shubert Organization, which owns and operates theaters in New York, Philadelphia, Washington and Boston. He also is Chairman of the League of American Theatres and Producers, is a member of the Board of NYC & Company, and serves as Chairman of the Mayor's Midtown Citizens Committee. "Throughout his career, Mr. Schoenfeld has brought vision, dedication, and expertise to the world of New York theater," Thompson said. The second award went to media and community leader Jerry Greenwald. Greenwald is the Chief Operating Officer and Managing Editor of the Jewish Press, the world's largest independent English language Jewish weekly newspaper. He also serves as President of the Yeshiva of Manhattan Beach and as President of Congregation Shaarey Torah in Manhattan Beach, and is a Board Member of Manhattan Beach Jewish Center and Shorefront Community Council. Thompson called Greenwald "a dedicated leader and an inspiring role model.” Dr. Charlotte K. Frank was the third honoree of the evening. Dr. Frank is Senior Vice President of Research and Development for McGraw-Hill Education of The McGraw-Hill Companies. She represents McGraw-Hill at the National Business Roundtable's Education Taskforce Initiative and coordinates the Harold W. McGraw Jr. Awards for those who have made a difference in education. Dr. Frank also is co-chair of the educational initiative "Don't Laugh At Me: Operation Respect." "Dr. Frank has provided outstanding leadership and demonstrated exceptional dedication to creating quality educational materials," said the Comptroller, presenting the award "in recognition of her contributions to the field of publishing and the quality of life in New York City." Dr. Bernard Lander received the next award. Dr. Lander is Founder and President of Touro College. Under his leadership, the college has grown to become an international university, with campuses in Moscow , Israel , and Berlin . Dr. Lander served as New York City’s first Commissioner of Human Rights and has long been involved in civil rights initiatives. Dr. Lander also has served as a consultant to three U.S. Presidents, and was a member of the commission that shaped the historic "War on Poverty" campaign. Thompson praised Dr. Lander for working " to improve higher education in New York City and beyond, bringing vision, dedication, and expertise to the effort." The final honoree of the evening was social service and community leader David Mandel. Mandel is the Chief Executive Officer of OHEL Children's Home and Family Services. OHEL and its affiliates, Bais Ezra and the Lifetime Care Foundation for the Jewish Disabled, serve children and adults with mental illness, developmental disabilities and families in crisis. "Mr. Mandel is a dedicated leader and an inspiring role model," said the Comptroller. The Yeshiva of Flatbush High School Chamber Choir provided the entertainment portion of the evening.

2005: The Israeli government voted to increase financial help for needy Holocaust survivors. The aid comes in the form of increased rent subsidies and 75% discount on drug purchases.
2006: Germany hosts a Holocaust conference in Berlin featuring Raul Hilberg, considered one of the leading experts on Holocaust studies who wrote the comprehensive multi-volume book, "The Destruction of European Jewry."

2007: As part of Chanukah festivities, the last of 18 performances of “Around the World in 80 Days” directed Yaron Kafkafi takes place at the Nokia Stadium in Yad Eliahu.

2007: Opening session of the 46th Assembly of Women of Reform Judaism (WRJ) in San Diego, California.

2007: Union for Reform Judaism 2007 Biennial Convention opens in San Diego, CA. On the eve of the conference, Meir Azari, rabbi of the Beit Daniel synagogue in Tel Aviv, expressed his concern over the future of relations between the Reform Movement in the United States and Israel.

2007: The New York City Police arrested ten individuals suspected of carrying out an anti-Semitic attack against four Jewish students on the previous Friday night, the fifth night of Chanukah.

2008: In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Temple Judah Friday Night Services features, the Second Musical Shabbat of the 2008-2009 Season.

2008: “Adam Resurrected” which follows the life former Berlin magician and circus impresario Adam Stein opens at the Quad City Cinema in New York City. A highly theatrical performance by Jeff Goldblum, traces the life of Stein an enthralling, enigmatic patient at the Seizling Institute, a remote Israeli rehabilitation outpost for Holocaust survivors. Entertainer, clairvoyant, sophisticate and lothario, Stein veers from brilliance to eroticism, horror and madness, with flashbacks to the physical and psychological demoralization he endured under Commandant Klein, played by Willem Dafoe, in the Stellring death camp. Stein appears to have everyone stymied and overawed, but an unusual new patient seems to have the magnetic power to break him free of the grip of his relentless torment.

2008: The Robert I. Lappin Charitable Foundation based in Salem, Mass., shut its doors after saying it had lost all its money -- $8 million -- by investing with Bernard Madoff self-confessed creator of the largest Ponzi scheme in history

2008: Reacting to an increasingly perilous economic outlook, the leader of the Reform movement proposed that some of the movement's synagogues could consider merging with Conservative congregations as a cost-saving measure. Rabbi Eric Yoffie, in a speech to the Union for Reform Judaism's board of trustees, said that while he generally views American Jewish pluralism as a source of strength, communities in the current crisis may no longer be able to afford multiple synagogues. “In a small town it may be that a struggling Reform and a struggling Conservative synagogue will have to overcome their differences and join in cooperative programming, and even formal mergers,” Yoffie said today in Tampa, Fla. “And in a large city, with two or five or 10 Reform congregations, it may be that the time has come to share social services, buildings and staff.”

2009 (25 Kislev, 5770): First Day of Chanukah.

2009: The 20th Washington Jewish Film Festival features a screening of “The Wedding Song,” a film that tells the story of two adolescent girls – one Jewish, one Moslem – living in Tunis in 1942 when the Nazis occupy the city.

2009: The 24th Annual New York Israeli Film Festival features screenings of “A Matter of Size” and “Adam Resurrected” starring American actor Jeff Goldblum

2009: Opening night of the Sephardic Music Festival in New York City.

2009: The Hub of the JCCSF and San Francisco’s Contemporary Jewish Museum present “Super 8 Hanukkah Festival.”

2009: Five Hamas men were arrested today, while trying to infiltrate Israel from Egypt, carrying explosives, a gun, a silencer and $15,000 in counterfeit bills, according to the announcement. During the arrest, two of the operatives were wounded.

2010: The Women's League Convention 2010 is scheduled to hold its opening session at the Marriott Waterfront located in Baltimore, MD.

2010: The Los Angeles Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including And the Show Went On: Cultural Life in Nazi-Occupied Paris by Alan Riding.

2010: The New York Times features reviews of books by Jewish authors and/or of special interest to Jewish readers including the recently released paperback edition of Ayn Rand and The World She Made by Anne C. Heller.

2010: “Freedom” by Jonathan Franzen, .Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff, “Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics (1954-1981) With Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, ­Grudges, Whines and Anecdotes by Stephen Sondheim are listed on The New York Times list of the 10 Best Books of 2010

2010(5th of Tevet, 5771): Dan Kurzman, who wrote military histories that illuminated little-known incidents in World War II and an exhaustively reported account of the first Arab-Israeli war, died today Manhattan. He was 88 and lived in North Bergen, N.J. Mr. Kurzman, a former foreign correspondent for The Washington Post, covered diverse topics in 50 years of writing books, including disasters like the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, biographies of heads of state in Israel and Japan and the sinking of three warships. But he frequently returned to World War II and Israel. His books include “Ben-Gurion: Prophet of Fire,” a biography of David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister; “A Special Mission: Hitler’s Secret Plot to Seize the Vatican and Kidnap Pope Pius XII,” about an episode in which Nazi officials in Italy undermined a direct order from Hitler in 1943 to abduct the pope and loot the Vatican; and “Blood and Water: Sabotaging Hitler’s Bomb,” about Allied efforts to destroy Norsk Hydro, a plant in Norway that could create deuterium oxide, or heavy water, a substance that could have helped the Nazis build a nuclear bomb. Reviewing that book in The New York Times in 1997, Richard Bernstein wrote: “On the dust jacket is a photograph of eight of the Norwegian saboteurs who planned or carried out the attack on the heavy water plant. They have long been heroes in Norway. Thanks to Mr. Kurzman, they can now achieve a measure of that well-deserved status in the United States as well.” Daniel Halperin Kurzman was born March 27, 1922, in San Francisco, to Joseph and Lillian Kurzman. He attended the University of California, Berkeley, before joining the Army in 1943. He graduated from Berkeley with a bachelor’s degree in political science in 1946. Mr. Kurzman worked for newspapers and news services in Europe and Israel in the early 1950s, then took a job as Jerusalem correspondent for NBC News. He published his first book, “Kishi and Japan: The Search for the Sun,” a biography of the Japanese prime minister Nobusuke Kishi, in 1960. Mr. Kurzman took a job with The Washington Post in the early 1960s and received the George K. Polk Memorial Award for foreign reporting in 1965. He left the newspaper in the late 1960s. (As reported by Daniel Slotnik)

2010(5th of Tevet, 5771): Jacob Lateiner, a concert pianist renowned for his interpretations both of Beethoven and of 20th-century music, died today in Manhattan. He was 82 and lived in Manhattan. His death was confirmed by the Juilliard School, at which Mr. Lateiner (pronounced la-TYE-ner) had taught from 1966 until his retirement last year. He was also a longtime faculty member of Mannes College the New School for Music. Mr. Lateiner, who made his debut as a teenager in the 1940s, was a member of the cohort of young American pianists — or YAPs, as they were known to the classical-music trade — that included Eugene Istomin, Gary Graffman, Claude Frank and Leon Fleisher. He was known in particular for his technical virtuosity, the beauty and flexibility of his tone and a deep musical understanding that was rooted in his fealty to the composer’s original intent. (Mr. Lateiner was an avid collector of music manuscripts and first editions, over which he pored studiously before performing the work in question.) As a soloist, Mr. Lateiner appeared with many of the world’s leading orchestras, among them the New York and Berlin Philharmonics, the Boston and Chicago Symphonies and the Cleveland and Philadelphia Orchestras. As a chamber musician, he performed frequently with the violinist Jascha Heifetz and the cellist Gregor Piatigorsky. Mr. Lateiner commissioned Elliott Carter’s Piano Concerto, whose premiere he gave in 1967 with the Boston Symphony, conducted by Erich Leinsdorf. He also gave the premiere of Roger Sessions’s Third Piano Sonata, composed in 1965. Jacob Lateiner was born in Havana in 1928 to Jewish parents who had come from Poland. A gifted pianist as a child, he was admitted to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia when he was about 12; his principal teacher there was Isabelle Vengerova. In 1944, at 16, the young Mr. Lateiner made his debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra, performing Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto. In 1948, he made his New York recital debut at Carnegie Hall in a program of Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Berg and Prokofieff. Reviewing the recital in The New York Times, Olin Downes called it “astonishing,” going on to praise Mr. Lateiner’s “maturity of technique and musicianship.” After three years’ Army service in the early 1950s, Mr. Lateiner made his New York Philharmonic debut in 1954, performing Prokofieff’s Third Piano Concerto under the baton of Franco Autori. Among Mr. Lateiner’s recordings, a series he made for RCA Victor in the 1960s is especially esteemed by critics and collectors. They include Beethoven’s Piano Trio Opus 1, No. 1, with Heifetz and Piatigorsky, which received a Grammy Award in 1965; Mr. Carter’s Piano Concerto, with Leinsdorf and the Boston Symphony; and the Brahms C Minor Piano Quartet, with Heifetz, Piatigorsky and the violist Sanford Schonbach. Mr. Lateiner’s brother, the violinist Isidore Lateiner, died in 2005. Information on other survivors could not be confirmed. In 2000, Mr. Lateiner was the subject of a festschrift, “Pianist, Scholar, Connoisseur: Essays in Honor of Jacob Lateiner,” edited by the pianist Bruce Brubaker — a former pupil of his — and Jane Gottlieb. (As reported by Margalit Fox)

2011: Gabriel Bass, Rabbi Joanne Heiligman and Nina Bonos are scheduled to participate in “Objects and Spaces that Influence Jewish Memory” a panel discussion presented by Shaare Tefila in Olney, Maryland.

2011: “A Happy End” Israeli playwright IIddo Netanyahu’s play that follows acclaimed Jewish physicist Mark Erdmann, head of the atomic lab at the University of Berlin, and his wife Leah through the arduous decision of whether or not to leave Germany following the notorious elections of 1932 is scheduled to be performed at the Martin E.. Segal Center at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City.

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